REMINISCENCES  OF  ANTON  CHEKHOV 


REMINISCENCES  OF 
ANTON  CHEKHOV 

BY 

MAXIM   GORKY,  ALEXANDER   KUPRIN 
AND  I.  A.  BUNIN 


TRANSLATED  BY 

S.  S.  KOTELIANSKY  and   LEONARD  WOOLF 


NEW  YORK    B.  W.  HUEBSCH,  Inc.      mcmxxi 


COPYRIGHT,  1921,  BY  i 

B.  W.  HUEBSCH,    Inc.  j 


PRINTED   IN    THV    UNITBD    8TATB8    OT    AMIRIOA 


CONTENTS 

FRAGMENTS  OF  RECOLLECTIONS  BY  MAXIM  GORKY,   1 

TO  Chekhov's  memory  by  Alexander  kuprin,  29 

A.  p.  CHEKHOV  BY  I.  A.  BUNIN,  9I 


ANTON  CHEKHOV 

FRAGMENTS  OF  RECOLLECTIONS 
BY 

MAXIM  GORKY 


Once  he  invited  me  to  the  village  Kout- 
chouk-Koy  where  he  had  a  tiny  strip  of  land 
and  a  white,  two-storied  house.  There, 
while  showing  me  his  "estate,"  he  began  to 
speak  with  animation:  *'If  I  had  plenty  of 
money,  I  should  build  a  sanatorium  here  for 
invalid  village  teachers.  You  know,  I 
would  put  up  a  large,  bright  building — very 
bright,  with  large  windows  and  lofty  rooms. 
I  would  have  a  line  library,  different  musical 
instruments,  bees,  a  vegetable  garden,  an 
orchard.  .  .  .  There  would  be  lectures  on 
agriculture,  mytholog}^  .  .  .  Teachers  ought 
to  know  everything,  everything,  my  dear 
fellow." 

He  was  suddenly  silent,  coughed,  looked 
at  me  out  of  the  corners  of  his  eyes,  and 
smiled  that  tender,  channing  smile  of  his 
which  attracted  one  so  irresistibly  to  him  and 
made  one  listen  so  attentively  to  his  words. 

''Does  it  bore  you  to  listen  to  my  fanta- 
sies'? I  do  love  to  talk  of  it.  .  .  .  If  you 
knew  how  badly  the  Russian  village  needs  a 

[1] 


nice,  sensible,  educated  teacher  I  We  ought 
in  Russia  to  give  the  teacher  particularly 
good  conditions,  and  it  ought  to  be  done  as 
quickly  as  possible.  We  ought  to  realize 
that  without  a  wide  education  of  the  people, 
Russia  will  collapse,  like  a  house  built  of 
badly  baked  bricks.  A  teacher  must  be  an 
artist,  in  love  with  his  calling;  but  with  us 
he  is  a  journeyman,  ill  educated,  who  goes 
to  the  village  to  teach  children  as  though 
he  were  going  into  exile.  He  is  starved, 
crushed,  terrorized  by  the  fear  of  losing  his 
daily  bread.  But  he  ought  to-be  the  first 
man  in  the  village;  the  peasants  ought  to 
recognize  him  as  a  power,  worthy  of  atten- 
tion and  respect ;  no  one  should  dare  to  shout 
at  him  or  humilate  him  personally,  as  with 
us  every  one  does — the  village  constable,  the 
rich  shop-keeper,  the  priest,  the  rural  police 
commissioner,  the  school  guardian,  the  coun- 
cilor, and  that  official  who  has  the  title  of 
school-inspector,  but  who  cares  nothing  for 
the  improvement  of  education  and  only  sees 
that  the  circulars  of  his  chiefs  are  carried 
out.  ...  It  is  ridiculous  to  pay  in  farthings 
the  man  who  has  to  educate  the  people.  It 
is  intolerable  that  he  should  walk  in  rags, 

[2] 


shiver  with  cold  in  damp  and  draughty 
schools,  catch  cold,  and  about  the  age  of 
thirty  get  laryngitis,  rheumatism,  or  tuber- 
culosis. We  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  it. 
Our  teacher,  for  eight  or  nine  months  in  the 
year,  lives  like  a  hermit:  he  has  no  one  to 
speak  a  word  to;  without  company,  books, 
or  amusements,  he  is  growing  stupid,  and, 
if  he  invites  his  colleagues  to  visit  him,  then 
he  becomes  politically  suspect — a  stupid 
word  with  which  crafty  men  frighten  fools. 
All  this  is  disgusting;  it  is  the  mockery  of  a 
man  who  is  doing  a  great  and  tremendously 
important  work.  .  .  .  Do  you  know,  when- 
ever I  see  a  teacher,  I  feel  ashamed  for  him, 
for  his  timidity,  and  because  he  is  badly 
dressed  ...  it  seems  to  me  that  for  the 
teacher's  wretchedness  I  am  myself  to  blame 
— ^I  mean  it.'' 

He  was  silent,  thinking;  and  then,  waving 
his  hand,  he  said  gently:  "This  Russia  of 
ours  is  such  an  absurd,  clumsy  country." 

A  shadow  of  sadness  crossed  his  beauti- 
ful eyes;  little  rays  of  wrinkles  surrounded 
them  and  made  them  look  still  more  medita- 
tive. Then,  looking  round,  he  said  jest- 
ingly: "You  see,  I  have  fired  off  at  you  a 

[3] 


complete  leading  article  from  a  radical  paper. 
Come,  ril  give  you  tea  to  reward  your  pa- 
tience." 

That  was  characteristic  of  him,  to  speak 
so  earnestly,  with  such  warmth  and  sincerity, 
and  then  suddenly  to  laugh  at  himself  and 
his  speech.  In  that  sad  and  gentle  smile  one 
felt  the  subtle  skepticism  of  the  man  who 
knows  the  value  of  words  and  dreams;  and 
there  also  flashed  in  the  smile  a  lovable 
modesty  and  delicate  sensitiveness.  .  .  . 

We  walked  back  slowly  in  silence  to  the 
house.  It  was  a  clear,  hot  day;  the  waves 
sparkled  under  the  bright  rays  of  the  sun; 
down  below  one  heard  a  dog  barking  joy- 
fully. Chekhov  took  my  arm,  coughed,  and 
said  slowly:  "It  is  shameful  and  sad,  but 
true:  there  are  many  men  who  envy  the 
dogs." 

And  he  added  immediately  with  a  laugh: 
"To-day  I  can  only  make  feeble  speeches 
...  It  means  that  I'm  getting  old.'' 

I  often  heard  him  say:  "You  know,  a 
teacher  has  just  come  here — he's  ill,  mar- 
ried .  .  .  couldn't  you  do  something  for 
him?  I  have  made  arrangements  for  him 
for  the  time  being."     Or  again:  "Listen, 

l4] 


Gorky,  there  is  a  teacher  here  who  would 
like  to  meet  you.  He  can't  go  out,  he's  ill. 
Won't  you  come  and  see  him*?  Do."  Or: 
"Look  here,  the  women  teachers  want  books 
to  be  sent  to  them." 

Sometimes  I  would  find  that  "teacher"  at 
his  house;  usually  he  would  be  sitting  on 
the  edge  of  his  chair,  blushing  at  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  awkwardness,  in  the 
sweat  of  his  brow  picking  and  choosing  his 
words,  trying  to  speak  smoothly  and  "edu- 
catedly";  or,  with  the  ease  of  manner  of  a 
person  who  is  morbidly  shy,  he  would  con- 
centrate himself  upon  the  effort  not  to  appear 
stupid  in  the  eyes  of  an  author,  and  he  would 
simply  belabor  Anton  Chekhov  with  a  hail 
of  questions  which  had  never  entered  his 
head  until  that  moment. 

Anton  Chekhov  would  listen  attentively 
to  the  dreary,  incoherent  speech;  now  and 
again  a  smile  came  into  his  sad  eyes,  a  little 
wrinkle  appeared  on  his  forehead,  and  then, 
in  his  soft,  lusterless  voice,  he  began  to  speak 
simple,  clear,  homely  words,  words  which 
somehow  or  other  immediately  made  his 
questioner  simple :  the  teacher  stopped  trying 
to    be    clever,    and    therefore    immediately 

[5] 


became   more   clever   and   interesting.  .  .  . 

I  remember  one  teacher,  a  tall,  thin  man 
with  a  yellow,  hungry-  face  and  a  long, 
hooked  nose  which  drooped  gloomily  towards 
his  chin.  He  sat  opposite  .\nton  Chekhov 
and,  looking  fixedly  into  Chekhov's  face  with 
his  black  eyes,  said  in  a  melancholy  bass 
voice : 

"From  such  impressions  of  existence 
within  the  space  of  the  tutorial  session  there 
comes  a  psychical  conglomeration  which 
crushes  every  possibility  of  an  objective  at- 
titude towards  the  surrounding  universe. 
Of  course,  the  universe  is  nothing  but  our 
presentation  of  it.  .  .  ." 

And  he  rushed  headlong  into  philosophy, 
and  he  moved  over  its  surface  like  a  drunk- 
ard skating  on  ice. 

"Tell  me,"  Chekhov  put  in  quietly  and 
kindly,  "who  is  that  teacher  in  your  district 
who  beats  the  children?" 

The  teacher  sprang  from  his  chair  and 
waved  his  arms  indignantly:  "Whom  do  you 
Tiean'?     Me*?     Never!     Beating'?" 

He  snorted  with  indignation. 

"Don't  get  excited,"  .\nton  Chekhov  went 


[6] 


on,  smiling  reassuringly;  "Pm  not  speaking 
of  you.  But  I  remember — I  read  it  in  the 
newspapers — there  is  some  one  in  your  dis- 
trict who  beats  the  children." 

The  teacher  sat  down,  wiped  his  perspir- 
ing face,  and,  with  a  sigh  of  relief,  said  in 
his  deep  bass : — 

'It's  true  .  .  .  there  was  such  a  case  .  .  . 
it  was  Makarov.  You  know,  it's  not  surpris- 
ing. It's  cruel,  but  explicable.  He's  mar- 
ried .  .  .  has  four  children  ...  his  wife  is 
ill  .  .  .  himself  consumptive  ...  his  sal- 
ar\^  is  20  roubles,  the  school  like  a  cellar, 
and  the  teacher  has  but  a  single  room — under 
such  circumstances  you  will  give  a  thrash- 
ing to  an  angel  of  God  for  no  fault  .  .  . 
and  the  children — they're  far  from  angels, 
believe  me." 

And  the  man,  who  had  just  been  merci- 
lessly belaboring  ChekHov  with  his  store  of 
clever  words,  suddenly,  ominously  wagging 
his  hooked  nose,  began  to  speak  simple, 
weighty,  clear-cut  words,  which  illuminated, 
like  a  fire,  the  terrible,  accursed  truth  about 
the  life  of  the  Russian  village. 

When  he  said  good-bye  to  his  host,  the 


[7] 


teacher  took  Chekhov's  small,  dry  hand  with 
its  thin  fingers  in  both  his  own,  and,  shaking 
it,  said: — 

"I  came  to  you  as  though  I  were  going  to 
the  authorities,  in  fear  and  trembling  .  .  . 
I  puffed  myself  out  like  a  turkey-cock  .  .  . 
I  wanted  to  show  you  that  I  was  no  ordinary 
mortal.  .  .  .  And  now  I'm  leaving  you  as  a 
nice,  close  friend  who  understands  every- 
thing. .  .  .  It's  a  great  thing — to  under- 
stand everything!  Thank  you!  rrri  tak- 
ing away  with  me  a  pleasant  thought:  big 
men  are  simpler  and  more  understandable 
.  .  .  'and  nearer  in  soul  to  us  fellow  men 
than  all  those  wretches  among  whom  we 
live.  .  .  .  Good-bye;  I  will  never  forget 
you." 

His  nose  quivered,  his  lips  twisted  into  a 
good-natured  smile,  and  he  added  suddenly: 

"To  tell  the  truth,  scoundrels  too  are  un- 
happy— the  devil  take  them." 

When  he  went  out,  Chekhov  followed  him 
with  a  glance,  smiled,  and  said : 

"He's  a  nice  fellow.  .  .  ,  He  won't  be  a 
teacher  long." 

•^Why?' 

[8] 


"They  will  run  him  down — whip  him 

off.'' 

He  thought  for  a  bit,  and  added  quietly: 
'In  Russia  an  honest  man  is  rather  like  the 

chimney-sweep  with  whom  nurses  frighten 

children." 

I  THINK  that  in  Anton  Chekhov's  presence 
every  one  involuntarily  felt  in  himself  a  de^ 
sire  to  b£._sirn2kruiiiiC£Jtry^^  one's 

^eli-;  I  often  saw  how  people  cast  off  the  mot- 
ley finery  of  bookish  phrases,  smart  words, 
and  all  the  other  cheap  tricks  with  which  a 
Russian,  wishing  to  figure  as  a  European, 
adorns  himself,  like  a  savage  with  shells  and 
fish's  teeth.  Anton  Chekhov  disliked  fish's 
teeth  and  cock's  feathers;  anything  "bril- 
liant" or  foreign,  assumed  by  a  man  to  make 
himself  look  bigger,  disturbed  him;  I  noticed 
that,  whenever  he  saw  any  one  dressed  up  in 
this  way,  he  had  a  desire  to  free  him  from 
all  that  oppressive,  useless  tinsel  and  to  find 
underneath  the  genuine  face  and  living  soul 
of  the  person.  Alibis  life  Chekhov  lived 
on  his  ownsoul;  he  was^always  himself. 
iiTwardly^"7ree,  and  he  never  troubled  about 


[9] 


/ 


what  some  people  expected  and  others — 
coarser  people — demanded  of  Anton  Chek- 
hov. He  did  not  like  conversations  about 
deep  questions,  conversations  with  which 
our  dear  Russians  so  assiduously  comfort 
themselves,  forgetting  that  it  is  ridiculous, 
and  not  at  all  amusing,  to  argue  about  velvet 
costumes  in  the  future  when  in  the  pres- 
ent one  has  not  even  a  decent  pair  of 
trousers. 

Beautifully  simple  himself,  he  loved 
everything  simple,  genuine,  sincere,  and  he 
had  a  peculiar  way  of  making  other  people 
simple. 

Once,  I  remember,  three  luxuriously 
dressed  ladies  came  to  see  him;  they  filled  his 
room  with  the  rustle  of  silk  skirts  and  the 
smell  of  strong  scent;  they  sat  down  politely 
opposite  their  host,  pretended  that  they  were 
interested  in  politics,  and  began  ''putting 
questions" : — 

Anton  Pavlovitch,  what  do  you  think? 
How  will  the  war  end?" 

Anton  Pavlovitch  coughed,  thought  for 
a  while,  and  then  gently,  in  a  serious  and 
kindly  voice,  replied: 

"Probably  in  peace." 
[lo] 


"Well,  yes  .  .  .  certainly.  But  who 
will  win?     The  Greeks  or  the  Turks?" 

''It  seems  to  me  that  those  will  win  who 
are  the  stronger." 

"And  who,  do  you  think,  are  the  strong- 
er?" all  the  ladies  asked  together. 

"Those  who  are  the  better  fed  and  the  bet- 
ter educated." 

"Ah,  how  clever,"  one  of  them  exclaimed. 

"And  whom  do  you  like  best?"  another 
asked. 

Anton  Pavlovitch  looked  at  her  kindly, 
and  answered  with  a  meek  smile : 

"I  love  candied  fruits  .  .  .  don't  you?" 

"Very  much,"  the  lady  exclaimed  gayly. 

"Especially  Abrikossov^s,"  the  second 
agreed  solidly.  And  the  third,  half  closing 
her  eyes,  added  with  relish: 

"It  smells  so  good." 

And  all  three  began  to  talk  with  vivacity, 
revealing,  on  the  subject  of  candied  fruit, 
great  erudition  and  subtle  knowledge.  It 
was  obvious  that  they  were  happy  at  not 
having  to  strain  their  minds  and  pretend  to 
be  seriously  interested  in  Turks  and  Greeks, 
to  whom  up  to  that  moment  they  had  not 
given  a  thought. 

[11] 


When  they  left,  they  merrily  promised 
Anton  Pavlovitch: 

"We  will  send  you  some  candied  fruit." 

"You  managed  that  nicely,"  I  observed 
when  they  had  gone. 

Anton  Pavlovitch  laughed  quietly  and 
said: 

"Every  one  should  speak  his  own  lan- 
guage." 

On  another  occasion  I  found  at  his  house 
a  young  and  prettyish  crown  prosecutor. 
He  was  standing  in  front  of  Chekhov,  shak- 
ing his  curly  head,  and  speaking  briskly : 

"In  your  story,  'The  Conspirator,'  you, 
Anton  Pavlovitch,  put  before  me  a  very  com- 
plex case.  If  I  admit  in  Denis  Grigoriev 
a  criminal  and  conscious  intention,  then  I 
must,  without  any  reservation,  bundle  him 
into  prison,  in  the  interests  of  the  commu- 
nity. But  he  is  a  savage;  he  did  not  realize 
the  criminality  of  his  act.  ...  I  feel  pity 
for  him.  But  suppose  I  regard  him  as  a 
man  who  acted  without  understanding,  and 
suppose  I  yield  to  my  feeling  of  pity,  how 
can  I  guarantee  the  community  that  Denis 
will  not  again  unscrew  the  nut  in  the  sleep- 

[12] 


ers  and  wreck  a  train  ^  That's  the  question. 
What's  to  be  done^" 

He  stopped,  threw  himself  back,  and  fixed 
an  inquiring  look  on  Anton  Pavlovitch's 
face.  His  uniform  was  quite  new,  and  the 
buttons  shone  as  self -confidently  and  dully 
on  his  chest  as  did  the  little  eyes  in  the 
pretty,  clean,  little  face  of  the  youthful  en- 
thusiast for  justice. 

''If  I  were  judge,"  said  Anton  Pavlovitch 
gravely,  "I  would  acquit  Denis." 

"On  what  grounds'?" 

"I  would  say  to  him:  you,  Denis,  have 
not  yet  ripened  into  the  type  of  the  deliber- 
ate criminal;  go — and  ripen." 

The  lawyer  began  to  laugh,  but  instantly 
again  became  pompously  serious  and  said: 

"No,  sir,  the  question  put  by  you  must  be 
answered  only  in  the  interests  of  the  commu- 
nity whose  life  and  property  I  am  called 
upon  to  protect.  Denis  is  a  savage,  but  he 
is  also  a  criminal — that  is  the  truth." 

"Do  you  like  gramophones^"  suddenly 
asked  Anton  Pavlovitch  in  his  soft  voice. 

"O  yes,  very  much.  An  amazing  inven- 
tion!" the  youth  answered  gayly. 

[13] 


^ 


I 


"And  I  can't  stand  gramophones,"  Anton 
Pavlovitch  confessed  sadly. 

"Why?" 

"They  speak  and  sing  without  feeling. 
Everything  seems  like  a  caricature  .  .  . 
dead.     Do  you  like  photography?" 

It  appeared  that  the  lawyer  was  a  passion- 
ate lover  of  photography;  he  began  at  once 
to  speak  of  it  with  enthusiaism,  completely 
uninterested,  as  Chekhov  had  subtly  and 
truly  noticed,  in  the  gramophone,  despite 
his  admiration  for  that  "amazing  invention." 
And  again  I  observed  how  there  looked  out 
of  that  uniform  a  living  and  rather  amusing 
little  man,  whose  feelings  towards  life  were 
still  those  of  a  puppy  hunting. 

When  Anton  Pavlovitch  had  seen  Jiim 
out,  he  said  sternly: 

"They  are  like  pimples  on  the  seat  of 
justice — disposing  of  the  fate  of  people." 

And  after  a  short  silence: 

"Crown  prosecutors  must  be  very  fond  of 
fishing  .  .  .  especially  for  little  fish." 

He  had  the  art  of  revealing  everywhere  and 
driving  away  banality,  an  art  which  is  only 
possible  to  a  man  who  demands  much  from 


life  and  which  comes  from  a  keen  desire  to 
see    men     simple,    beautiful,    harmonious 
Banality  always  found  m  him"X^3iscemirig 
andjnercile^judg^:^^       / 

Some  one  told  in  his  presence  how  the  edi- 
tor of  a  popular  magazine,  who  was  always    j 
talking  of  the  necessity  of  love  and  pity,  had, 
for   no   reason    at   all,    insulted    a    railway    \ 
guard,  and  how  he  usually  acted  with  ex-    : 
treme  rudeness  towards  his  inferiors.  A 

"Well,"  said  Anton  Pavlovitch  with  a  j 
gloomy  smile,  *'but  isn't  he  an  aristocrat,  an  } 
educated  gentleman'?  He  studied  at  the  \ 
seminary.  His  father  wore  bast  shoes,  and  ; 
he  wears  patent-leather  boots." 

And  in  his  tone  there  was  something  which 
at  once  made  the  "aristocrat"  trivial  and 
ridiculous. 

"He's  a  very  gifted  man,"  he  said  of  a 
certain  journalist.  "He  always  writes  so 
nobly,  humanely,  .  ,  ;.  lemonadely.  Calls 
his  wife  a  fool  in  public  .  .  .  the  servants' 
rooms  are  damp  and  the  maids  constantly 
get  rheumatics." 

"Don't  you  like  N.  N.,  Anton  Pavlo- 
vitch"?" 

"Yes,  I  do — very  much.     He's  a  pleas- 

[15] 


ant  fellow,"  Anton  Pavlovitch  agrees,  cough- 
ing. ''He  knows  everything  .  .  .  reads  a 
lot  .  .  .  he  hasn't  returned  three  of  my 
books  .  .  .  he's  absent-minded.  To-day  he 
will  tell  you  that  you're  a  wonderful  fellow, 
and  to-morrow  he  will  tell  somebody  else 
that  you  cheat  your  servants,  and  that  you 
have  stolen  from  your  mistress's  husband 
his  silk  socks  ...  the  black  ones  with  the 
blue  stripes." 

Some  one  in  his  presence  complained  of  the 
heaviness  and  tediousness  of  the  ''serious" 
sections  in  thick  monthly  magazines. 

"But  you  mustn't  read  those  articles," 
said  Anton  Pavlovitch.  "They  are  friends' 
literature — written  for  friends.  They  are 
written  by  Messrs.  Red,  Black,  and  White. 
One  writes  an  article;  the  other  replies  to  it; 
and  the  third  reconciles  the  contradictions  of 
the  other  two.  It  is  like  playing  whist  with 
a  dummy.  Yet  none  of  them  asks  himself 
what  good  it  is  to  the  reader." 

Once  a  plump,  healthy,  handsome,  well- 
dressed  lady  came  to  him  and  began  to  speak 
a  la  Chekhov : — 

"Life  is  so  boring,  Anton  Pavlovitch. 
Everything  is  so  gray:  people,  the  sea,  even 

[16] 


the  flowers  seem  to  me  gray.  .  .  .  And  I 
have  no  desires  .  .  .  my  soul  is  in  pain  .  .  . 
it  is  like  a  disease." 

"It  is  a  disease,"  said  Anton  Pavlovitch 
with  conviction,  "it  is  a  disease;  in  Latin 
it  is  called  morbus  imitatisJ' 

Fortunately  the  lady  did  not  seem  to  know 
Latin,  or,  perhaps,  she  pretended  not  to  know 
it. 

"Critics  are  like  horse-flies  which  prevent 
the  horse  from  plowing,"  he  said,  smiling 
his  wise  smile.  "The  horse  works,  all  its 
muscles  drawn  tight  like  the  strings  on  a 
doublebass,  and  a  fly  settles  on  his  flanks  and 
tickles  and  buzzes  ...  he  has  to  twitch  his 
skin  and  swish  his  tail.  And  what  does  the 
fly  buzz  about ^  It  scarcely  knows  itself; 
simply  because  it  is  restless  and  wants  to 
proclaim:  'Look,  I  too  am  living  on  the 
earth.  See,  I  can  buzz,  too,  buzz  about 
anything.'  For  twenty-five  years  I  have 
read  criticisms  of  my  stories,  and  I  don't  re- 
member a  single  remark  of  any  value  or  one 
word  of  valuable  advice.  Only  once  Skabit- 
chevsky  wrote  something  which  made  an  im- 
pression on  me  ...  he  said  I  would  die 
in  a  ditch,  drunk." 

[17] 


Nearly  always  there  was  an  ironical  smile 
in  his  gray  eyes,  but  at  times  they  became 
cold,  sharp,  hard ;  at  such  times  a  harder  tone 
sounded  in  his  soft,  sincere  voice,  and  then 
it  appeared  that  this  modest,  gentle  man, 
when  he  found  it  necessary,  could  rouse  him- 
self vigorously  against  a  hostile  force  and 
would  not  yield. 

But  sometimes,  I  thought,  there  was  in 
his  attitude  towards  people  a  feeling  of  hope- 
lessness, almost  'of  cold,  resigned  despair. 

''A  Russian  is  a  strange  creature,"  he  said 
once.  "He  is  like  a  sieve;  nothing  remains 
in  him.  In  his  youth  he  fills  himself  greed- 
ily With  anything  which  he  comes  across, 
and  after  thirty  years  nothing  remains  but  a 
kind  of  gray  rubbish.  ...  In  order  to  live 
well  and  humanly  one  must  work — work 
with  love  and  with  faith.  But  we,  we  can't 
do  it.  An  architect,  having  built  a  couple 
of  decent  buildings,  sits  down  to  play  cards, 
plays  all  his  life,  or  else  is  to  be  found  some- 
where behind  the  scenes  of  some  theatre. 
A  doctor,  if  he  has  a  practice,  ceases  to  be 
interested  in  science,  and  reads  nothing  but 
The  Medical  Journal^  and  at  forty  seriously 

[18] 


believes  that  all  diseases  have  their  origin  in 
catarrh.     I  have  never  met  a  single  civil  ser- 
vant who  had  any  idea  of  the  meaning  of  his 
work :  usually  he  sits  in  the  metropolis  or  the 
chief  town  cff  the  province,  and  writes  papers 
and  sends  them  off  to  Zmiev  or  Smorgon  for 
attention.     But  that  those  papers  will  de- 
prive some  one  in  Zmiev  or  Smorgon  of  free- 
dom of  movement — of  that  the  civil  servant 
thinks  as  little  as  an  atheist  of  the  tortures 
of  hell.     A  lawyer  who  has  made  a  name  by 
a  successful  defense  ceases  to  care  about  jus- 
tice, and  defends  only  the  rights  of  property, 
gambles  on   the  Turf,   eats  oysters,  figures, 
as  a  connoisseur  of  all  the  arts.     An  actor, 
having  taken  two  or  three  parts  tolerably,  no 
longer  troubles  to  learn  his  parts,  puts  on  a 
silk  hat,  and  thinks  himself  a  genius.     Rus- 
sia is  a  land  of  insatiable  and  lazy  people: 
they  eat  enormously  of  nice  things,  drink, 
like  to  sleep  in  the  day-time,  and  snore  in\ 
their  sleep.     They  niarry  in  order  to  get  their  | 
house  looked   after  and  keep  mistresses  in  \ 
order  to  be  thought  well  of  in  society.    Their   1 
psychology  is  that  of  a  dog:  when  they  are  ( 
beaten,  they  whine  shrilly  and  run  into  their 

;[i9]i 


kennels;  when  petted,  they  lie  on  their  backs 
with  their  paws  in  the  air  and  wag  their 
tails." 

Pain  and  cold  contempt  sounded  in  these 
words.  But,  though  contemptuous,  he  felt 
pity,  and,  if  in  his  presence  you  abused  any 
one,  Anton  Pavlovitch  would  immediately 
defend  him. 

''Why  dto  you  say  that^  He  is  an  old 
man  .  .  .  he's  seventy."  Or:  "But  he's 
still  so  young  .  .  .  it's  only  stupidity." 

And,  when  he  spoke  like  that,  I  never  saw 
a  sign  of  aversion  in  his  face. 

When  a  man  is  young,  banality  seems  only 
amusing  and  unimportant,  but  little  by 
little  it  possesses  a  man;  it  permeates  his 
brain  and  blood  like  poison  or  asphyxiating 
fumes;  he  becomes  like  an  old,  rusty  sign- 
board: something  is  painted  on  it,  but  what? 
— You  can't  make  out. 

Anton  Pavlovitch  in  his  early  stories  was 
already  able  to  reveal  in  the  dim  sea  of 
banality  its  tragic  humor;  one  has  only  to 
read  his  "humorous"  stories  with  attention 
to  see  what  a  lot  of  cruel  and  disgusting 

[20] 


things,    behind    the    humorous    words    and  i 

situations,   had  been  observed   by   the   au-  ; 

thor   with  sorrow   and   were   concealed   by  \ 

him. 

«^-He  was  ingenuously  shy;  he  would  not 
say  aloud  and  openly  to  people:  "Now  do 
be  more  decent" ;  he  hoped  in  vain  that  they 
would  themselves  see  how  necessary  it  was  \ 

that  they  should  be  more  decent.     He  hated  ] 

everything  banal  and  foul,  and  he  described  | 

the  abominations  of  life  in  the  noble  Ian-  j 

guage  of  a  poet,  with  the  humorist's  gentle  1 

smile,  and  behind  the  beautiful  form  of  his 
stories  people  scarcely  noticed  the  inner 
meaning,  full  of  bitter  reproach.  ^r^t^^f  ^^^ 

The    dear    public,    when    it    reads    his  j 

"Daughter  of  Albion,"   laughs  and  hardly  \ 

realizes    how    abominable    is    the  well-fed  \ 

squire's  mockery  of  a  person  who  is  lonely  \ 

and  strange  to  every  one  and  everything.     In  ' 

each  of  his  humorous  stories  I  hear  the  quiet, 
deep  sigh  of  a  pure  and  human  heart,  the  \ 

hopeless  sigh  of  sympathy  for  men  who  do  i 

not  know  how  to  respect  human  dignity,  who 
submit  without  any  resistance  to  mere  force, 

live  like  fish,  believe  in  nothing  but  the  ne-  \ 

I 

[21]  : 


f 


cessity   of   swallowing  every  day  as  much 
thick  soup  as  possible,  and  feel  nothing  but 
fear  that  some  one,  strong  and  insolent,  will 
^ive  them  a  hiding. 

^  No  one  understood  as  clearly  and  finely 
as  Anton  Chekhov,  the  tragedy  of  life's  triv- 
ialities, no  one  before  him  showed  men  with 
such  merciless  truth  the  terrible  and  shame- 
ful picture  of  their  life  in  the  dim  chaos  of 
bourgeois  every-day  existence. 

His  enemy  was  banality;  he  fought  it  all 
his  life  long;  he  ridiculed  it,  drawing  it  with 
a  pointed  and  unimpassioned  pen,  finding  the 
mustiness  of  banality  even  where  at  the  first 
glance  everything  seemed  to  be  arranged  very 
nicely,  comfortably,  and  even  brilliantly — ■ 
and  banality  revenged  itself  upon  him  by  af 
nasty  prank,  for  it  saw  that  his  corpse,  the 
corpse  of  a  poet,  was  put  into  a  railway  truck 
"For  the  Conveyance  of  Oysters." 

That  dirty  green  railway  truck  seems  to 
me  precisely  the  great,  triumphant  laugh  of 
banality  over  its  tired  enemy;  and  all  the 
"Recollections"  in  the  gutter  press  are  hypo- 
critical sorrow,  behind  which  I  feel  the  cold 
and  smelly  breath  of  banality,  secretly  re- 
joicing over  the  death  of  its  enemy. 
[22] 


Reading  Anton  Chekhov's  stories,  one  feels 
oneself  in  a  melancholy  day  of  late  autumn, 
when  the  air  is  transparent  and  the  outline  of 
naked  trees,  narrow  houses,  grayish  people, 
is  sharp.  Everything  is  strange,  lonely,  mo- 
tionless, helpless.  The  horizon,  blue  and 
empty,  melts  into  the  pale  sky  and  its  breath 
is  terribly  cold  upon  the  earth  which  is  cov- 
ered with  frozen  mud.  The  author's  mind, 
like  the  autumn  sun,  shows  up  in  hard  out- 
line the  monotonous  roads,  the  crooked 
streets,  the  little  squalid  houses  in  which 
tiny,  miserable  people  are  stifled  by  boredom 
and  laziness  and  fill  the  houses  with  an  un- 
intelligible, drowsy  bustle.  Here  anxiously, 
like  a  gray  mouse,  scurries  "The  Darling," 
the  dear,  meek  woman  who  loves  so  slavishly 
and  who  can  love  so  much.  You  can  slap 
her  cheek  and  she  won't  even  dare  to  utter  a 
sigh  aloud,  the  meek  slave.  .  .  .  And  by  her 
side  is  Olga  of  "The  Three  Sisters" :  she  too 
loves  much,  and  submits  with  resignation  to 
the  caprices  of  the  dissolute,  banal  wife  of 
her  good-for-nothing  brother;  the  life  of  her 
sisters  crumbles  before  her  eyes,  she  weeps 
and  cannot  help  any  one  in  anything,  and 

[23] 


she  has  not  within  her  a  single  live,  strong 
word  of  protest  against  banality. 

And  here  is  the  lachrymose  Ranevskaya 
and  the  other  owners  of  "The  Cherry  Orch- 
ard," egotistical  like  children,  with  the  flab- 
biness  of  senility.  They  missed  the  right 
moment  for  dying;  they  whine,  seeing  noth- 
ing of  what  is  going  on  around  them,  under- 
standing nothing,  parasites  without  the 
power  of  again  taking  root  in  life.  The  | 
wretched  little  student,  Trofimov,  speaks  I 
eloquently  of  the  necessity  of  working — and 
does  nothing  but  amuse  himself,  out  of  sheer 
boredom,  with  stupid  mockery  of  Varya 
who  works  ceaselessly  for  the  good  of  the 
idlers. 

Vershinin  dreams  'of  how  pleasant  life 
will  be  in  three  hundred  years,  and  lives 
without  perceiving  that  everything  around 
him  is  falling  into  ruin  before  his  eyes;  Sol- 
yony,  from  boredom  and  stupidity,  is  ready 
to  kill  the  pitiable  Baron  Tousenbach. 

There  passes  before  one  a  long  file  of  men 
and  women,  slaves  of  their  love,  of  their  stu- 
pidity and  idleness,  of  their  greed  for  the 
good  things  of  life;  there  walk  the  slaves  of 
the  dark  fear  of  life;  they  straggle  anxiously 

[24I 


along,  filling  life  with  incoherent  words 
about  the  future,  feeling  that  in  the  present 
there  is  no  place  for  them. 

At  moments  out  of  the  gray  mass  of  them 
one  hears  the  sound  of  a  shot:  Ivanov  or 
Triepliev  has  guessed  what  he  ought  to  do, 
and  has  died. 

Many  of  them  have  nice  dreams  of  how 
pleasant  life  will  be  in  two  hundred  years, 
but  it  occurs  to  none  of  them  to  ask  them- 
selves who  will  make  life  pleasant  if  we 
only  dream. 

In  front  of  that  dreary,  gray  crowd  of 
helpless  people  there  passed  a  great,  wise, 
and  observant  man;  he  looked  at  all  these 
dreary  inhabitants  of  his  country,  and,  with 
a  sad  smile,  with  a  tone  of  gentle  but  deep 
reproach,  with  anguish  in  his  face  and  in  his 
heart,  in  a  beautiful  and  sincere  voice,  he 
said  to  them: 

*'You  live  badly,  my  friends.  It  is 
shameful  to  live  like  that." 


[-5] 


TO  CHEKHOV'S  MEMORY 

BY 

ALEXANDER  KUPRIN 

He  lived  among  us 


/ 


You  remember  how,  in  early  childhood, 
after  the  long  summer  holidays,  one  went 
back  to  school.  Everything  was  gray;  it 
was  like  a  barrack;  it  smelt  of  fresh  paint 
and  putty;  one's  school-fellows  rough, 
the  authorities  unkind.  Still  one  tried  some- 
how to  keep  up  one's  courage,  though  at  mo- 
ments one  was  seized  with  home-sickness. 
One  was  occupied  in  greeting  friends,  struck 
by  changes  in  faces,  deafened  by  the  noise 
and  movement. 

But  when  evening  comes  and  the  bustle 
in  the  half  dark  dormitory  ceases,  O  what 
an  unbearablei  sadness,  what  despair  pos- 
sesses one's  soul.  One  bites  one's  pillow, 
suppressing  one's  sobs,  one  whispers  dear 
names  and  cries,  cries  with  tears  that  burn, 
and  knows  that  this  sorrow  is  unquenchable. 
It  is  then  that  one  realizes  Xor  the  first  time 


all  the  shattering  horror  of  j.WB-^ngsjL,the_ 
■~lffev(^abITrty  "oFlhe  J3a^^  of- 

^ioneliness'.'"  Tt  seems  as  if  one  would  gladly 

[29] 


give  up  all  the  rest  of  life,  gladly  suffer  any 
tortures,  for  a  single  day  of  that  bright,  beau- 
tiful life  which  will  never  repeat  itself.  It 
seems  as  if  one  would  snatch  each  kind,  car- 
essing word  and  enclose  it  forever  in  one's 
memor}%  as  if  one  would  drink  into  one's 
soul,  slowly  and  greedily,  drop  by  drop, 
every  caress.  And  one  is  cruelly  tormented 
by  the  thought  that,  through  carelessness,  in 
the  hurry,  and  because  time  seemed  inex- 
haustible, one  had  not  made  the  most  of 
each  hour  and  moment  that  flashed  by  in 
vain. 

A  child's  sorrows  are  sharp,  but  will  melt 
in  sleep  and  disappear  with  the  morning  sun. 
We,  grown-up  people,  do  not  feel  them  so 
passionately,  but  we  remember  longer  and 
grieve  more  deeply.  After  Chekhov's  fu- 
neral, coming  back  from  the  service  in  the 
cemetery,  one  great  writer  spoke  words  that 
were  simple,  but  full  of  meaning: 

"Now  we  have  buried  him,  the  hopeless 
keenness  of  the  loss  is  passing  away.  But  do 
you  realize,  forever,  till  the  end  of  our  days, 
there  will  remain  in  us  a  constant,  dull,  sad, 
consciousness  that  Chekhov  is  not  there'?" 

And  now  that  he  is  not  here,  one  feels  with 

[30] 


peculiar  pain  how  precious  was  each  word 
of  his,  each  smile,  movement,  glance,  in 
which  shone  out  his  beautiful,  elect,  aristo- 
cratic soul.  One  is  sorry  that  one  was  not 
always  attentive  to  those  special  details, 
which  sometimes  more  potently  and  inti- 
mately than  great  deeds  reveal  the  inner 
man.  One  reproaches  oneself  that  in  the 
fluster  of  life  one  has  not  managed  to  remem- 
ber— to  write  down  much  of  what  is  interest- 
ing, characteristic  and  important.  And  at 
the  same  time  one  knows  that  these  feelings 
are  shared  by  all  those  who  were  near  him, 
who  loved  him  truly  as  a  man  of  incompar- 
able spiritual  fineness  and  beauty;  and  with 
eternal  gratitude  they  will  respect  his  mem- 
ory, as  the  memory  of  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable of  Russian  writers. 

To  the  love,  to  the  tender  and  subtle  sor- 
row of  these  men,  I  dedicate  these  lines. 

Chekhov's  cottage  in  Yalta  stood  neany 
outside  the  town,  right  on  the  white  and 
dusty  Antka  road.  I  do  not  know  who  had 
built  it,  but  it  was  the  most  original  build- 
ing in  Yalta.  All  bright,  pure,  light,  beau- 
tifully-proportioned,   built    in    no    definite 

[31] 


architectural  style  whatsoever,  with  a  watch- 
tower  like  a  castle,  with  unexpected  gables, 
with  a  glass  verandah  on  the  ground  and 
an  open  terrace  above,  with  scattered  win- 
dows— both  wide  and  narrow — the  bunga- 
low resembled  a  building  of  the  modern 
school,  if  there  were  not  obvious  in  its  plan 
the  attentive  and  original  thought,  the  origi- 
nal, peculiar  taste  of  an  individual.  The 
bungalow  stood  in  the  corner  of  an  orchard, 
surrounded  by  a  flower-garden.  Adjoining 
the  garden,  on  the  side  opposite  the  road  was 
an  old  deserted  Tartar  cemetery,  fenced  with 
a  low  little  wall ;  always  green,  still  and  un- 
peopled, with  modest  stones  on  the  graves. 
The  flower  garden  was  tiny,  not  at  all 
luxurious,  and  the  fruit  orchard  was  still 
very  young.  There  grew  in  it  pears  and 
crab-apples,  apricots,  peaches,  almonds. 
During  the  last  year  the  orchard  began  to 
bear  fruit,  which  caused  Anton  Pavlovitch 
much  worry  and  a  touching  and  childish 
pleasure.  When  the  time  came  to  gather 
almonds,  they  were  also  gathered  in  Chek- 
hov's orchard.  They  usually  lay  in  a  little 
heap  in  the  window-sill  of  the  drawing  room, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  nobody  could  be  cruel 

[32] 


enough  to  take  them,  although  they  were 
offered. 

Anton  Pavlovitch  did  not  like  it  and  was 
even  cross  when  people  told  him  that  his 
bungalow  was  too  little  protected  from  the 
dust,  which  came  from  the  Antka  road,  and 
that  the  orchard  was  insufficiently  supplied 
with  water.  Without  on  the  whole  liking 
the  Crimea,  and  certainly  not  Yalta,  he  re- 
garded his  orchard  with  a  special,  zealous 
love.  People  saw  him  sometimes  in  the 
morning,  sitting  on  his  heels,  carefully  coat- 
ing the  stems  of  his  roses  with  sulphur  or 
pulling  weeds  from  the  flower  beds.  And 
what  rejoicing  there  would  be,  when  in  the 
summer  drought  there  at  last  began  a  rain 
that  filled  the  spare  clay  cisterns  with  water ! 

But  his  love  was  not  that  of  a  proprietor, 
it  was  something  else — a  mightier  and  wiser 
consciousness.  He  would  often  say,  look- 
ing at  his  orchard  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye : 

"Look,  I  have  planted  each  tree  here  and 
certainly  they  are  dear  to  me.  But  this  is 
of  no  consequence.  Before  I  came  here  all 
this  was  waste  land  and  ravines,  all  covered 
with  stones  and  thistles.  Then  I  came  and 
turned   this    wilderness    into    a   cultivated, 

[33] 


beautiful  place.  Do  you  know^" — ^he 
would  suddenly  add  with  a  grave  face,  in  a 
tone  of  profound  belief — "do  you  know  that 
in  three  or  four  hundred  years  all  the  earth 
will  become  a  flourishing  garden.  And  life 
will  then  be  exceedingly  light  and  comfor- 
table." 

The  thought  of  the  beauty  of  the  coming 
life,  which  is  expressed  so  tenderly,  sadly, 
and  charmingly  in  all  his  latest  works,  was 
in  his  life  also  one  of  his  most  intimate,  most 
Cherished  thoughts.  How  often  must  he 
have  thought  of  the  future  happiness  of 
mankind  when,  in  the  mornings,  alone,  si- 
lently, he  trimmed  his  roses,  still  moist  from 
the  dew,  or  examined  carefully  a  young  sap- 
ling, wounded  by  the  wind.  And  how  much 
there  was  in  that  thought  of  meek,  wise,  and 
humble  self-forgetfulness. 

No,  it  was  not  a  thirst  for  life,  a  clinging 
to  life  coming  from  the  insatiable  human 
heart,  neither  was  it  a  greedy  curiosity  as 
to  what  will  come  after  one's  own  life,  nor 
an  envious  jealousy  of  remote  generations. 
It  was  the  agony  of  an  exceptionally  refined, 
charming,  and  sensitive  soul,  who  suffered 
beyond  measure  from  banality,  coarseness, 

[34] 


dreariness,  nothingness,  violence,  savagery — 
the  whole  horror  and  darkness  of  modern 
everyday  existence.  And  that  is  why,  when 
towards  the  end  of  his  life  there  came  to  him 
immense  fame  and  comparative  security,  to- 
gether with  the  devoted  love  of  all  that  was 
sensitive,  talented  and  honest  in  Russian  so- 
cif:ty, — that  is  why  he  did  not  lock  himself 
up  in  the  inaccessibility  of  cold  greatness 
nor  become  a  masterful  prophet  nor  shrink 
into  a  venomous  and  petty  hostility  against 
the  fame  of  others.  No,  the  sum  of  his  wide 
and  hard  experience  of  life,  of  his  sorrows, 
joys,  and  disappointments  was  expressed  in 
that  beautiful,  anxious,  self-forgetting 
dream  of  the  coming  happiness  of  others. 

— "How  beautiful  life  will  be  in  three  or 
four  hundred  years." 

And  that  is  why  he  looked  lovingly  after 
his  flower  beds,  as  if  he  saw  in  them  the  sym- 
bol of  beauty  to  come,  and  watched  new 
paths  being  laid  out  by  human  intellect  and 
knowledge.  He  looked  with  pleasure  at 
new  original  buildings  and  at  large,  seago- 
ing steamers;  he  was  eagerly  interested  in 
every  new  invention  and  was  not  bored  by 
the  company  of  specialists.     With  firm  con- 

[35] 


I 


viction  he  said  that  crimes  such  as  murder, 
theft,  and  adultery  are  decreasing,  and  have 
nearly  disappeared  among  the  intelligentsia, 
teachers,  doctors,  and  authors.  He  believed 
that  in  the  future  true  culture  would  en- 
noble mankind. 

Telling  of  Chekhov's  orchard  I  forgot  to 
mention  that  there  stood  in  the  middle  of  it 
swings  and  a  wooden  bench.  Both  these 
latter  remained  from  "Uncle  Vanya,"  which 
play  the  Moscow  Art  Theatre  acted  at 
Yalta,  evidently  with  the  sole  purpose  of 
showing  the  performance  to  Anton  Pavlo- 
vitch  who  was  ill  then.  Both  objects  were 
specially  dear  to  Chekhov  and,  pointing  to 
them,  he  would  recollect  with  gratitude  the 
attention  paid  him  so  kindly  by  the  Art 
Theatre.  It  is  fitting  to  say  here  that  these 
fine  actors,  by  their  exceptionally  subtle  re- 
sponse to  Chekhov's  talent  and  their  friendly 
devotion  to  himself,  much  sweetened  his 
last  days. 


II 


There  lived  in  the  yard  a  tame  crane  and 
two  dogs.     It  must  be  said  that  Anton  Chek- 

[36] 


hov  loved  all  animals  very  much  with  the 
exception  of  cats,  for  whom  he  felt  an  in- 
vincible disgust.  He  loved  dogs  specially. 
His  dead  "Kashtanka,"  his  "Bromide,"  and 
"Quinine,"  which  he  had  in  Melikhovo,  he 
remembered  and  spoke  of,  as  one  remembers 
one's  dead  friends.  "Fine  race,  dogs!" — he 
would  say  at  times  with  a  good-natured  smile. 

The  crane  was  a  pompous,  grave  bird. 
He  generally  mistrusted  people,  but  had  a 
close  friendship  with  Arseniy,  Anton  Chek- 
hov's pious  servant.  He  would  run  after 
Arseniy  anywhere,  in  the  garden,  orchard 
or  yard  and  would  jump  amusingly  and  wave 
his  wide-open  wings,  performing  a  char- 
acteristic crane  dance,  which  always  made 
Anton  Pavlovitch  laugh. 

One  dog  was  called  "Tusik,"  and  the  other 
"Kashtan,"  in  honor  of  the  famous  "Kash- 
tanka.'^  "Kashtan"  was  distinguished*  in 
nothing  but  stupidity  and  idleness.  In  ap- 
pearance he  was  fat,  smooth  and  clumsy,  of 
a  bright  chocolate  color,  with  senseless  yel- 
low eyes.  He  would  bark  after  "Tusik"  at 
strangers,  but  one  had  only  to  call  him  and 
he  would  turn  on  his  back  and  begin  ser- 
vilely to  crawl  on  the  ground.    Anton  Pavlo- 

[37] 


vitch  would  give  him  a  little  push  with  his 
stick,  when  he  came  up  fawning,  and  would 
say  with  mock  sternness : 

— "Go  away,  go  away,  fool.  .  .  .  Leave 
me  alone." 

And  would  add,  turning  to  his  interlocu- 
tor, with  annoyance,  but  with  laughter  in  his 
eyes: 

— "Wouldn't  you  like  me  to  give  you  this 
dog?     You  can't  believe  how  stupid  he  is." 

But  it  happened  once  that  "Kashtan," 
through  his  stupidity  and  clumsiness,  got  un- 
der the  wheels  of  a  cab  which  crushed  his 
leg.  The  poor  dog  came  home  running  on 
three  legs,  howling  ter-ibly.  His  hind  leg 
was  crippled,  the  flesh  cut  nearly  to  the  bone, 
bleeding  profusely.  Anton  Pavlovitch  in- 
stantly washed  his  wound  with  warm  water 
and  sublimate,  sprinkled  iodoform  and  put 
on  a  bandage.  And  with  what  tenderness, 
how  dexterously  and  warily  his  big  beauti- 
ful fingers  touched  the  torn  skin  of  the  dog, 
and  with  what  compassionate  reproof  he 
soothed  the  howling  "Kashtan": 

— "Ah,    you   silly,    silly.  .  .  .  How   did 
you  do  it?     Be  quiet  .  .  .  you'll  be  better 
.  .  .  little  stupid  .  .  ." 
[38] 


I  have  to  repeat  a  commonplace,  but  there 
is  no  doubt  that  animals  and  children  were 
instinctively  drawn  to  Chekhov.  Sometimes 
a  girl  who  was  ill  would  come  to  A.  P.  and 
bring  with  her  a  little  orphan  girl  of  three 
or  four,  whom  she  was  bringing  up.  Be- 
tween the  tiny  child  and  the  sad  invalid  man, 
the  famous  author,  was  established  a  pecu- 
liar, serious  and  trusting  friendship.  They 
would  sit  for  a  long  time  on  the  bench,  in 
the  verandah.  Anton  Pavlovitch  listened 
with  attention  and  concentration,  and  she 
would  whisper  to  him  without  ceasing  her 
funny  words  and  tangle  her  little  hands  in 
his  beard. 

Chekhov  was  regarded  with  a  great  and 
heart-felt  love  by  all  sorts  of  simple  people 
with  whom  he  came  into  contact — servants, 
messengers,  porters,  beggars,  tramps,  post- 
men,— and  not  only  with  love,  but  with  sub- 
tle sensitiveness,  with  concern  and  with  un- 
derstanding. I  cannot  help  telling  here  one 
story  which  was  told  me  by  a  small  official 
of  the  Russian  Navigation  and  Trade  Com- 
pany, a  downright  man,  reserved  and  per- 
fectly direct  in  receiving  and  telling  his  im- 
pressions. 

[39] 


'It  was  autumn.  Chekhov,  returning 
from  Moscow,  had  just  arrived  by  steamer 
from  Sebastopol  at  Yalta,  and  had  not  yet 
left  the  deck.  It  was  that  interval  of  chaos, 
of  shouts  and  bustle  which  comes  while  the 
gangway  is  being  put  in  place.  At  that  cha- 
otic moment  the  porter,  a  Tartar,  who 
always  waited  on  Chekhov,  saw  him  from  the 
distance  and  managed  to  climb  up  on  the 
steamer  sooner  than  any  one  else.  He  found 
Chekhov's  luggage  and  was  already  on  the 
point  of  carrying  it  down,  when  suddenly  a 
rough  and  fierce-looking  chief  mate  rushed 
on  him.  The  man  did  not  confine  himself 
to  obscene  language,  but  in  the  access  of  his 
official  anger,  he  struck  the  Tartar  on  the  face. 
"And  then  an  unbelievable  scene  took 
place,"  my  friend  told  me — "the  Tartar 
threw  the  luggage  on  the  deck,  beat  his 
breast  with  his  fists  and,  with  wild  eyes,  was 
ready  to  fall  on  the  chief  mate,  while  he 
shouted  in  a  voice  which  rang  all  over  the 
port: 

— "'What^     Striking   me?     D'ye   think 
you  struck  me?     It  is  him — him,  that  you 
struck!" 
"And  he  pointed  his  finger  at  Chekhov. 

[40] 


And  Chekhov,  you  know,  was  pale,  his  lips 
trembled.  He  came  up  to  the  mate  and  said 
to  him  quietly  and  distinctly,  but  with  an 
unusual  expression :  'Are  not  you  ashamed  I' 
Believe  me,  by  Jove,  if  I  were  that  chief 
mate,  I  would  rather  be  spat  upon  twenty 
times  in  the  face  than  hear  that  'are  not 
you  ashamed.'  And  although  the  mate 
was  sufficiently  thick-skinned,  even  he  felt  it. 
He  bustled  about  for  a  moment,  murmured 
something  and  disappeared  instantly.  No 
more  of  him  was  seen  on  deck." 


Ill 


Chekhov's  stuHy  in  his  Yalta  house  was 
not  big,  about  twelve  strides  long  and  six 
wide,  modest,  but  breathing  a  peculiar  charm. 
Just  opposite  the  entrance  was  a  large  square 
window  in  a  frame  of  yellow  colored  glass. 
To  the  left  of  the  entrance,  by  the  window, 
stood  a  writing  table,  and  behind  it  was  a 
small  niche,  lighted  from  the  ceiling,  by  a 
tiny  window.  In  the  niche  was  a  Turkish 
divan.  To  the  right,  in  the  middle  of  the 
wall  was  a  brown  fireplace  of  Dutch  tiles. 
On  the  top  of  the  fireplace  there  is  a  small 

[41] 


hole  where  a  tile  is  missing,  and  in  this  is  a 
carelessly  painted  but  lovely  landscape  of  an 
evening  field  with  hayricks  in  the  distance; 
the  work  of  Levitan.  Further,  in  the  corner, 
there  is  a  door,  through  which  is  seen  Anton 
Pavlovitch's  bachelor  bedroom,  a  bright, 
gay  room,  shining  with  a  certain  virgin  clean- 
liness, whiteness  and  innocence.  The  walls 
of  the  study  are  covered  with  dark  and  gold 
papers,  and  by  the  writing  table  hangs  a 
printed  placard:  "You  are  requested  not  to 
smoke."  Immediately  by  the  entrance  door, 
to  the  right,  there  is  a  book-case  with  books. 
On  the  mantelpiece  there  are  some  bric-a-brac 
and  among  them  a  beautifully  made  model 
of  a  sailing  ship.  There  are  many  pretty 
things  made  of  ivory  and  wood  on  the  writ- 
ing table;  models  of  elephants  being  in  the 
majority.  On  the  walls  hang  portraits  of 
Tolstoy,  Grigorovitch,  and  Turgenev.  On  a 
little  table  with  a  fan-like  stand  are  a  num- 
ber of  photographs  of  actors  and  authors. 
Heavy  dark  curtains  fall  on  both  sides  of 
the  window.  On  the  floor  is  a  large  carpet 
of  oriental  design.  This  softens  all  the  out- 
lines and  darkens  the  study;  yet  the  light 
from  the  window  falls  evenly  and  pleasantly 

[42] 


on  the  writing  table.  The  room  smells  of 
very  fine  scents  of  which  A.  Pavlovitch  was 
very  fond.  From  the  window  is  seen  an 
open  horseshoe-shaped  hollow,  running  down 
to  the  sea,  and  the  sea  itself,  surrounded  by 
an  amphitheatre  of  houses.  On  the  left,  on 
the  right,  and  behind,  rise  mountains  in  a 
semi-circle.  In  the  evenings,  when  the  lights 
are  lit  in  the  hilly  environs  of  Yalta  and  the 
lights  and  the  stars  over  them  are  so  mixed 
that  you  cannot  distinguish  one  from  the 
other, — then  the  place  reminds  one  of  cer- 
tain spots  in  the  Caucasus. 

This  is  what  always  happens — )^ou  get  to 
know  a  man;  you  have  studied  his  appear- 
ance, bearing,  voice  and  manners,  and  still 
you  can  always  recall  his  face  as  it  was  when 
you  saw  it  for  the  first  time,  completely  dif- 
ferent from  the  present.  Thus,  after  several 
years  of  friendship  with  Anton  Pavlovitch, 
there  is  preserved  in  my  memory  the  Chek- 
hov, whom  I  saw  for  the  first  time  in  the 
public  room  of  the  hotel  "London"  in  Odessa. 
He  seemed  to  me  then  tall,  lean,  but  broad 
in  the  shoulders,  with  a  somewhat  stern  look. 
Signs  of  illness  were  not  then  noticeable, 
unless  in  his  walk — weak,  and  as  if  on  some- 

[43] 


what  bent  knees.  If  I  were  asked  what  he 
was  like  at  first  sight,  I  should  say:  "A 
Zemstvo  doctor  or  a  teacher  of  a  provincial 
secondary  school."  But  there  was  also  in 
him  something  plain  and  modest,  something 
extraordinarily  Russian— of  the  people.  In 
his  face,  speech  and  manners  there  was  also 
a  touch  of  the  Moscow  undergraduate's  care- 
lessnesss.  Many  people  saw  that  in  him, 
and  I  among  them.  But  a  few  hours  later 
I  saw  a  completely  different  Chekhov — the 
Chekhov,  whose  face  could  never  be  caught 
by  any  photograph,  who,  unfortunately,  was 
not  understood  by  any  painter  who  drew 
.  him.  I  saw  the  most  beautiful,  refined  and 
/  spiritual  face  that  I  have  ever  come  across 
;     in  my  life. 

Many  said  that  Chekhov  had  blue  eyes. 
It  is  a  mistake,  but  a  mistake  strangely  com- 
mon to  all  who  knew  him.  His  eyes  were 
dark,  almost  brown,  and  the  iris  of  his  right 
eye  was  considerably  brighter,  which  gave 
A.  P.  's  look,  at  certain  moments,  an  expres- 
Bion  of  absent-mindedness.  His  eyelids 
hung  rather  heavy  upon  his  eyes,  as  is  so 
often  observed  in  artists,  hunters  and  sailors, 
and  all  those  who  concentrate  their  gaze. 

[44] 


Owing  to  his  pince-nez  and  his  manner  of 
looking  through  the  bottom  of  his  glasses, 
with  his  head  somewhat  tilted  upwards,  An- 
ton Pavlovitch's  face  often  seemed  stern. 
But  one  ought  to  have  seen  Chekhov  at  cer- 
tain moments  (rare,  alas,  during  the  last 
years)  when  gayety  possessed  him,  and  when 
with  a  quick  movement  of  the  hand,  he  threw 
off  his  glasses  and  swung  his  chair  and  burst 
into  gay,  sincere  and  deep  laughter.  Then 
his  eyes  became  narrow  and  bright,  with 
good-natured  little  wrinkles  at  the  corners, 
and  he  reminded  one  then  of  that  youthful 
portrait  in  which  he  is  seen  as  a  beardless 
boy,  smiling,  short-sighted  and  naive,  look- 
ing rather  sideways.  And — strange  though 
it  is — each  time  that  I  look  at  that  photo- 
graph, I  cannot  rid  myself  of  the  thought 
that  Chekhov's  eyes  were  really  blue. 

Looking  at  Chekhov  one  noticed  his  fore- 
head, which  was  wide,  white  and  pure,  and 
beautifully  shaped;  two  thoughtful  folds 
came  beween  the  eyebrows,  by  the  bridge 
of  the  nose,  two  vertical  melancholy  folds. 
Chekhov's  ears  were  large  and  not  shapely, 
but  such  sensible,  intelligent  ears  I  have  seen 
only  in  one  other  man — Tolstoy. 

[45] 


Once  in  the  summer,  availing  myself  of 
A.  P.'s  good  humor,  I  took  several  photo- 
graphs of  him  with  a  little  camera.  Un- 
fortunately the  best  of  them  and  those  most 
like  him  turned  out  very  pale,  owing  to  the 
weak  light  of  the  study.  Of  the  others, 
which  were  more  successful,  A.  P.  said  as  he 
looked  at  them: 

''Well,  you  know,  it  is  not  me  but  some 
Frenchman." 

I  remember  now  very  vividly  the  grip  of 
his  large,  dry  and  hot  hand, — a  grip,  always 
strong  and  manly  but  at  the  same  time  re- 
served, as  if  it  were  consciously  concealing 
something.  I  also  visualize  now  his  hand- 
writing: thin,  with  extremely  fine  strokes, 
careless  at  first  sight  and  inelegant,  but, 
when  you  look  closer,  it  appears  very  dis- 
tinct, tender,  fine  and  characteristic,  as  every- 
thing else  about  him. 


IV 


A.  P.  used  to  get  up,  in  the  summer  at 
least,  very  early.  None  even  of  his  most 
intimate  friends  saw  him  carelessly  dressed, 
nor  did  he  approve  of  lazy  habits,  like  wear- 

[46] 


ing  slippers,  dressing  gowns  or  light  jackets. 
At  eight  or  nine  he  was  already  pacing  his 
study  or  at  his  writing  table,  invariably 
impeccably  and  neatly  dressed. 

Evidently,  his  best  time  for  work  was  in 
the  morning  before  lunch,  although  nobody 
ever  managed  to  find  him  writing:  in  this 
respect  he  was  extraordinarily  reserved  and 
shy.  All  the  same,  on  nice  warm  mornings 
he  could  be  seen  sitting  on  a  slope  behind  the 
house,  in  the  cosiest  part  of  the  place,  where 
oleanders  stood  in  tubs  along  the  walls,  and 
where  he  had  planted  a  cypress.  There  he 
sat  sometimes  for  an  hour  or  longer,  alone, 
without  stirring,  with  his  hands  on  his  knees, 
looking  in  front  of  him  at  the  sea. 

About  midday  and  later  visitors  began  to 
fill  the  house.  Girls  stood  for  hours  at  the 
iron  railings,  separating  the  bungalow  from 
the  road,  with  open  mouths,  in  white  felt 
hats.  The  most  diverse  people  came  to 
Chekhov :  scholars,  authors,  Zemstvo  workers, 
doctors,  military,  painters,  admirers  of  both 
sexes,  professors,  society  men  and  women, 
senators,  priests,  actors — and  God  knows 
who  else.  Often  he  was  asked  to  give  ad- 
vice or  help  and  still  more  often  to  give  his 

[47] 


opinion  upon  manuscripts.  Casual  newspa- 
per reporters  and  people  who  were  merely  in- 
quisitive would  appear;  also  people  who 
came  to  him  with  the  sole  purpose  of  "direct- 
ing the  big,  but  erring  talent  to  the  proper, 
ideal  side."  Beggars  came — genuine  and 
sham.  These  never  met  with  a  refusal.  I 
do  not  think  it  right,  myself,  to  mention 
private  cases,  but  I  know  for  certain  that 
Chekhov's  generosity  towards  students  of 
both  sexes,  -was  immeasurably  beyond  what 
his  modest  means  would  allow. 

People  came  to  him  from  all  strata  of 
society,  of  all  camps,  of  all  shades.  Not- 
withstanding the  worry  of  so  continuous  a 
stream  of  visitors,  there  was  something  at- 
tractive in  it  to  Chekhov.  He  got  first-hand 
knowledge  of  everything  that  was  going  on 
at  any  given  moment  in  Russia.  How  mis- 
taken were  those  who  wrote  or  supposed  that 
he  was  a  man  indifferent  to  public  interests, 
to  the  whirling  life  of  the  intelligentsia,  and 
to  the  burning  questions  of  his  time!  He 
watched  everything  carefully,  and  thought- 
fully. He  was  tormented  and  distressed  by 
all  the  things  which  tormented  the  minds  of 
the  best  Russians.     One  had  only  to  see  how 

[48] 


.  in  those  terrible  times,  when  the  absurd, 
.  dark,  evil  phenomena  of  our  public  life  were 
discussed  in  his  presence,  he  knitted  his  thick 
eyebrows,  and  how  martyred  his  face  looked, 
and  what  a  deep  sorrow  shone  in  his  beauti- 
ful eyes. 

It  is  fitting  to  mention  here  one  fact 
which,  in  my  opinion,  superbly  illustrates 
\  Chekhov's  attitude  to  the  stupidities  of  Rus- 
sian life.  Many  know  that  he  resigned  the 
rank  of  an  honorary  member  of  the  Academy ; 
the  motives  of  his  resignation  are  known ;  but 
very  few  have  read  his  letter  to  the  Acad- 
emy,— a  splendid  letter,  written  with  a 
simple  and  noble  dignity,  and  the  restrained 
indignation  of  a  great  soul. 

To  the  August  President  of  the  Academy 

25  August,  1902 
Yalta. 
Your  Imperial  Highness, 

August  President! 

In  December  of  last  year  I  received  a  notice  of 
the  election  of  A.  M.  Pyeshkov  (Maxim  Gorky) 
as  an  honorary  academician,  and  I  took  the  first 
opportunity  of  seeing  A.  M.  Pyeshkov,  who  was 
then  in  Crimea.  I  was  the  first  to  bring  him  news 
of  his  election  and  I  was  the  first  to  congratulate 
him.     Some  time  later,   it  was  announced  in  the 

[49] 


newspapers  that,  in  view  of  proceedings  according 
to  Art.  1035  being  instituted  against  Pyeshkov  for 
his  political  views,  his  election  was  cancelled.  It 
was  expressly  stated  that  this  act  came  from  the 
Academy  of  Sciences ;  and  since  I  am  an  honorary 
academician,  I  also  am  partly  responsible  for  this 
act.  I  have  congratulated  him  heartily  on  becom- 
ing an  academician  and  I  consider  his  election  can- 
celled— such  a  contradiction  does  not  agree  with 
my  conscience,  I  cannot  reconcile  my  conscience  to 
it.  The  study  of  Art.  1035  has  explained  nothing 
to  me.  And  after  long  deliberation  I  can  only 
come  to  one  decision,  which  is  extremely  painful 
and  regrettable  to  me,  and  that  is  to  ask  rrlost 
respectfully  to  be  relieved  of  the  rank  of  honorary 
academician.  With  a  feeling  of  deepest  respect  I 
have  the  honor  to  remain 

Your  most  devoted 

Anton  Chekhov. 

Queer — to  what  an  extent  people  misun- 
derstood Chekhov!  He,  the  "incorrigible 
pessimist,"  as  he  was  labelled, — never  tired 
of  hoping  for  a  bright  future,  never  ceased  to 
believe  in  the  invisible  but  persistent  and 
fruitful  work  of  the  best  forces  of  our  coun- 
try. Which  of  his  friends  does  not  remember 
the  favorite  phrase,  which  he  so  often, 
sometimes  so  incongruously  and  unexpect- 
edly, uttered  in  a  tone  of  assurance: 

[50] 


— "Look  here,  don't  you  see^  There  is 
sure  to  be  a  constitution  in  Russia  in  ten  years 
time." 

Yes,  even  in  that  there  sounds  the  motif  of 
the  joyous  future  which  is  awaiting  mankind; 
the  motif  that  was  audible  in  all  the  work 
of  his  last  years. 

The  truth  must  be  told:  by  no  means  all 
visitors  spared  A.  P.  's  time  and  nerves,  and 
some  of  them  were  quite  merciless.  I  re- 
member one  striking,  and  almost  incredible 
instance  of  the  banality  and  indelicacy  which 
could  be  displayed  by  a  man  of  the  so-called 
artistic  power. 

It  was  a  pleasant,  cool  and  windless  sum- 
mer morning.  A.  P.  was  in  an  unusually 
light  and  cheerful  mood.  Suddenly  there 
appeared  as  from  the  blue  a  stout  gentleman 
(who  subsequently  turned  out  to  be  an  archi- 
tect), who  sent  his  card  to  Chekhov  and 
asked  for  an  interview.  A.  P.  received  him. 
The  architect  came  in,  introduced  himself, 
and,  without  taking  any  notice  of  the  pla- 
card "You  are  requested  not  to  smoke,"  with- 
out asking  any  permission,  lit  a  huge  stinking 
Riga  cigar.     Then,  after  paying,  as  was  in- 

[51] 


evi table,  a  few  stone-heavy  compliments  to 
his  host,  he  began  on  the  business  which 
brought  him  here. 

The  business  consisted  in  the  fact  that  the 
architect's  little  son,  a  school  boy  of  the  third 
form,  was  running  in  the  streets  the  other 
day  and  from.a  habit  peculiar  to  boys,  whilst 
running,  touched  with  his  hand  anything  he 
came  across:  lamp-posts,  or  posts  or  fences. 
At  last  he  managed  to  push  his  hand  into  a 
barbed  wire  fence  and  thus  scratched  his 
palm.  "You  see  now,  my  worthy  A.  P.," — 
the  architect  concluded  his  tale,  "I  shall  very 
much  like  you  to  write  a  letter  about  it  in 
the  newspapers.  It  is  lucky  that  Kolya  (his 
boy)  got  off  with  a  scratcti,  but  it's  only  a 
chance.  He  might  have  cut  an  artery — 
what  would  have  happened  then?"  "Yes, 
it's  a  nuisance,"  Chekhov  answered,  "but,  un- 
fortunately, I  cannot  be  of  any  use  to  you. 
I  do  not  write,  nor  have  ever  written,  letters 
in  the  newspapers.  I  only  write  stories." 
"So  much  the  better,  so  much  the  better! 
Put  it  in  a  story" — the  architect  was  de- 
lighted. "Just  put  the  name  of  the  landlord 
in  full  letters.  You  may  even  put  my  own 
name,  I  do  not  object  to  it.  .  .  .  Still  .  . 

[52] 


it  would  be  best  if  you  only  put  my  initials, 
not  the  full  name.  .  .  .  There  are  only  two 
genuine  authors  left  in  Russia,  you  and  Mr. 
P."  (and  the  architect  gave  the  name  of  a 
notorious  literary  tailor). 

I  am  not  able  to  repeat  even  a  hundredth 
part  of  the  boring  commonplaces  which  the 
injured  architect  managed  to  speak,  since  he 
made  the  interview  last  until  he  finished  the 
cigar  to  the  end,  and  the  study  had  to  be 
aired  for  a  long  time  to  get  rid  of  the  smell. 
But  when  at  last  he  left,  A.  P.  came  out  into 
the  garden  completely  upset  with  red  spots 
on  his  cheeks.  His  voice  trembled,  when 
he  turned  reproachfully  to  his  sister  Marie 
and  to  a  friend  who  sat  on  the  bench : 

"Could  you  not  shield  me  from  that  man^ 
You  should  have  sent  word  that  I  was  needed 
somewhere.     He  has  tortured  me  I" 

I  also  remember, — and  this  I  am  sorry 
to  say  was  partly  my  fault — how  a  certain 
self-assured  general  came  to  him  to  express 
his  appreciation  as  a  reader,  and,  probably, 
desiring  to  give  Chekhov  pleasure,  he  began, 
with  his  legs  spread  open  and  the  fists  of  his 
turned-out  hand  leaning  on  them,  to  vilify 
a  young  author,  whose  great  popularity  was 

[53] 


then  only  beginning  to  grow.  And  Chek-  \ 
hov,  at  once,  shrank  into  himself,  and  sat  all  I 
the  time  with  his  eyes  cast  down,  coldly,  j 
without  saying  a  single  word.  And  only 
from  the  quick  reproachful  look,  which  he 
cast  at  my  friend,  who  had  introduced  that 
general,  did  he  show  what  pain  he  caused. 

Just  as  shyly  and  coldly  he  regarded 
praises  lavished  on  him.  He  would  retire 
into  his  niche,  on  the  divan,  his  eyelids 
trembled,  slowly  fell  and  were  not  again 
raised,  and  his  face  became  motionless  and 
gloomy.  Sometimes,  when  immoderate  rap- 
tures came  from  some  one  he  knew,  he  would 
try  to  turn  the  conversation  into  a  joke, 
and  give  it  a  different  direction.  He  would 
suddenly  say,  without  rhyme  or  reason,  with 
a  light  little  laugh: 

— "1  like  reading  what  the  Odessa  repor- 
ters write  about  me." 

"What  is  that^" 

"It  is  very  funny — all  lies.  Last  spring 
one  of  them  appeared  in  my  hotel.  He 
asked  for  an  interview.  And  I  had  no  time 
for  it.  -So  I  said:  'Excuse  me  but  I  am 
busy  now.     But  write  whatever  you  like; 

[54] 


it  is  of  no  consequence  to  me.'     Well,  he 
did  write.     It  drove  me  into  a  fever." 

And  once  with  a  most  serious  face  he  said : 
— "You  know,  ini  Yalta  every  cabman 
knows  me.  They  say:  'O,  Chekhov,  that 
man,  the  reader'?  I  know  him.'  For  some 
reason  they  call  me  reader.  Perhaps  they 
think  that  I  read  psalm-services  for  the  dead? 
You,  old  fellow,  ought  to  ask  a  cabman  what 
my  occupation  is.  .  .  ." 


At  one  o'clock  Chekhov  dined  downstairs, 
in  a  cool  bright  dining-room,  and  there  was 
nearly  always  a  guest  at  dinner.  It  was 
difficult  not  to  yield  to  the  fascination  of 
that  simple,  kind,  cordial  family.  One  felt 
constant  solicitude  and  love,  not  expressed 
with  a  single  high-sounding  word, — an  amaz- 
ing amount  of  refin,ement  and  attention, 
which  never,  as  if  on  purpose,  got  beyond 
the  limits  of  ordinary,  everyday  relations. 
One  always  noticed  a  truly  Chekhovian  fear  / 
of  everything  high-flown,  insincere,  or  showy./ 
In  that  family  one  felt  very  much  at  one's 


[55] 


ease,  light  and  warm,  and  I  perfectly  under- 
stand a  certain  author  who  said  that  he  was 

in  love  with  all  the  Chekhovs  at  the  same  i 

time.  I 

Anton.  Pavlovitch   ate  exceedingly  little  i 

and  did  not  like  to  sit  at  table,  but  usually  i 

passed  from   the  window  to  the  door  and  \ 

back.     Often  after   dinner,   staying  behind  i 

with   some   one   in   the   dining-room,    Yev-  \ 

guenia  Yakovlevna   (A.  P.  's  mother)   said  ] 

quietly  with  anxiety  in  her  voice:  i 

"Again  Antosha  ate  nothing  at  dinner."  I 

He  was  very  hospitable  and  loved  it  when  I 

people  stayed  to  dinner,  and  he  knew  how  ] 

to  treat  guests   in   his   own  peculiar  way,  , 

simply  and  heartily.     He  would  say,  stand-  ; 
ing  behind  one's  chair : 

— "Listen,  have  some  vodka.     When   I 

was    young    and    healthy    I    loved    it.     I  j 
would  pick  mushrooms  for  a  whole  morning, 
get  tired  out,  hardly  able  to  reach  home,  and 
before  lunch  I   would  have  two  or  three 

thimblefuls.     Wonderful  I   ..."  \ 

After  dinner  he  had  tea  upstairs,  on  the  | 

open  verandah,  or  in  his  study,  or  he  would  \ 

come  down  into  the  garden  and  sit  there  on  | 

the  bench,  in  his  overcoat,  with  a  cane,  push-  \ 

[56]  I 


ing  his  soft  black  hat  down  to  his  very  eyes 
and  looking  out  under  its  brim  with  screwed 
up  eyes. 

These  hours  were  the  most  crowded. 
There  were  constant  rings  on  the  telephone, 
asking  if  Anton  Chekhov  could  be  seen ;  and 
perpetual  visitors.  Strangers  also  came, 
sending  in  their  cards  and  asking  for  help, 
for  autographs  or  books.  Then  queer 
things  happened. 

One  "Tambov  squire,"  as  Chekhov  chris- 
tened him,  came  to  him  for  medical  advice. 
In  vain  did  Anton  Pavlovitch  answer  him, 
that  he  had  given  up  medical  practice  long 
ago  and  that  he  was  behind  the  times  in 
medicine.  In  vain  did  he  recommend  a 
more  experienced  physician, — the  "Tambov 
squire"  persisted:  no  doctor  would  he  trust 
but  Chekhov.  Willy-nilly  he  had  to  give  a 
few  trifling,  perfectly  innocent  pieces  of 
advice.  On  taking  leave  the  "Tambov 
squire"  put  on  the  table  two  gold  coins  and, 
in  spite  of  all  Chekhov's  persuasion,  he 
would  not  agree  to  take  them  back.  Anton 
Pavlovitch  had  to  give  way.  He  said  that 
as  he  neither  wished  nor  considered  himself 
entitled  to  take  money  as  a  fee,  he  would 

[57] 


give  it  to  the  Yalta  Charitable  Society,  and 
at  once  wrote  a  receipt.  It  turned  out  that 
it  was  that  the  "Tambov  squire"  wanted. 
With  a  radiant  face,  he  carefully  put  the 
receipt  in  his  pocket-book,  and  then  con- 
fessed that  the  sole  purpose  of  his  visit  was 
to  obtain  Chekhov's  autograph.  Chekhov 
himself  told  me  the  story  of  this  original 
and  persistent  patient — half-laughing,  half- 
cross. 

I  repeat,  many  of  these  visitors  plagued 
him  fearfully  and  even  irritated  him,  but, 
owing  to  the  amazing  delicacy  peculiar  to 
him,  he  was  with  all  patient,  attentive  and 
accessible  to  those  who  wished  to  see  him. 
His  delicacy  at  times  reached  a  limit  that 
bordered  on  weakness.  Thus,  for  instance, 
one  nice,  well-meaning  lady,  a  great  admirer 
of  Chekhov,  gave  him  for  a  birthday  pres- 
ent a  huge  pug-dog  in  a  sitting  position, 
made  of  colored  plaster  of  Paris,  over  a 
yard  high,  i.  e.,  about  five  times  larger  than 
its  natural  size.  That  pug-dog  was  placed 
downstairs,  on  the  landing  near  the  dining 
room,  and  'there  he  sat  with  an  angry  face 
chewing  his  teeth  and  frightening  those  who 


had  forgotten  him. 


[58] 


— "O,  Pm  afraid  of  that  stone  dog  my- 
self," Chekhov  confessed,  "but  it  is  awkward 
to  move  him;  it  might  hurt  her.  Let  him 
stay  on  here." 

And  suddenly,  with  eyes  full  of  laughter, 
he  added  unexpectedly,  in  his  usual  manner : 

''Have  you  noticed  in  the  houses  of  rich 
Jews,  such  plaster  dogs  often  sit  by  the  fire- 
placed' 

At  times,  for  days  on  end,  he  would  be 
annoyed  with  every  sort  of  admirer  and  de- 
tractor and  even  adviser.  "O,  I  have  such 
a  mass  of  visitors," — he  complained  in  a 
letter, — '"that  my  head  swims.  I  cannot 
work."  But  still  he  did  not  remain  indif- 
ferent to  a  sincere  feeling  of  love  and  respect 
and  always  distinguished  it  from  idle  and 
fulsome  tittle-tattle.  Once  he  returned  in 
a  very  gay  mood  from  the  quay  where  he 
sometimes  took  a  walk,  and  with  great  ani- 
mation told  us: 

— "I  just  had  a  wonderful  meeting.  An 
artillery  officer  suddenly  came  up  to  me  on 
the  quay,  quite  a  young  man,  a  sub-lieu- 
tenant. — 'Are  you  A.  P.  Chekhov'?' 
— 'Yes.  Do  you  want  anything?' — 'Ex- 
cuse me  please  for  my  importunity,  but  for 

[59] 


so  long  I  have  wanted  to  shake  your  hand  I* 
And  he  blushed — he  was  a  wonderful  fel- 
low with  a  fine  face.  We  shook  hands  and 
parted." 

Chekhov  was  at  his  best  towards  evening, 
about  seven  o'clock,  when  people  gathered  in 
the  dining  room  for  tea  and  a  light  supper. 
Sometimes — but  more  and  more  rarely  as 
the  years  went  on — there  revived  in  him  the 
old  Chekhov,  inexhaustibly  gay,  witty,  with 
a  bubbling,  charming,  youthful  humor. 
Then  he  improvised  stories  in  which  the 
characters  were  his  friends,  and  he  was  par- 
ticularly fond  of  arranging  imaginary  wed- 
dings, which  sometimes  ended  with  the 
young  husband  the  following  morning,  sit- 
ting at  the  table  and  having  his  tea,  saying 
as  it  were  by  the  way  in  an  unconcerned  and 
businesslike  tone: 

— "Do  you  know,  my  dear,  after  tea  we'll 
get  ready  and  go  to  a  solicitor's.  Why 
should  you  have  unnecessary  bother  about 
your  money  *?" 

He  invented  wonderful  Chekhovian 
names,  of  which  I  now — alas! — remember 
only  a  certain  mythical  sailor  Ko^hkodo- 
venko-cat-slayer.     He  also  liked  as  a  joke 

[60] 


to  make  young  writers  appear  old.  "What 
are  you  saying — Bunin  is  my  age" — ^he 
would  assure  one  with  mock  seriousness. 
"So  is  Teleshov:  he  is  an  old  writer.  'Well, 
ask  him  yourself:  he  will  tell  you  what  a 
spree  we  had  at  T.  A.  Bieloussov's  wedding. 
What  a  long  time  ago!"  To  a  talented 
novelist,  a  serious  writer  and  a  man  of  ideas, 
he  said:  "Look  here,  you're  twenty  years  my 
senior:  surely  you  wrote  previously  under 
the  nom-de-plume  'Nestor  Kukolnik.'  " 

But  his  jokes  never  left  any  bitterness  any 
more  than  he  consciously  ever  caused  the 
slightest  pain  to  any  living  thing. 

After  dinner  he  would  keep  some  one  in 
!  his  study  for  half  an  hour  or  an  hour.  On 
his  table  candles  would  be  lit.  Later,  when 
all  had  gone  and  he  remained  alone,  a  light 
would  still  be  seen  in  his  large  window  for  a 
long  time.  Whether  he  worked  at  that 
time,  or  looked  through  his  note-books, 
putting  down  the  impressions  of  the  day  no- 
body seems  to  know. 


VI 


It   is  true,   on  the  whole,   that  we  know 

[61] 


nearly  nothing,  not  only  of  his  creative  ac- 
tivities, but  even  of  the  external  methods  of 
his  work.  In  this  respect  Anton  Pavlo- 
vitch  was  almost  eccentric  in  his  reserve 
and  silence.  I  remember  him  saying,  as  if 
by  the  way,  something  very  significant: 

— "For  God's  sake  don't  read  your  work 
to  any  one  until  it  is  published.  Don't 
read  it  to  others  in  proof  even." 

This  was  always  his  own  habit,  although 
he  sometimes  made  exceptions  for  his  wife 
and  sister.  Formerly  he  is  said  to  have  been 
more  communicative  in  this  respect. 

That  was  when  he  wrote  a  great  deal  and 
at  great  speed.  He  himself  said  that  he 
used  to  write  a  story  a  day.  E.  T.  Chek- 
hov, his  mother,  used  to  say:  ''When  he 
was  still  an  undergraduate,  Antosha  would 
sit  at  the  table  in  the  morning,  having  his 
tea  and  suddenly  fall  to  thinking;  he  would 
sometimes  look  straight  into  one's  eyes,  but 
I  knew  that  he  saw  nothing.  Then  he 
would  get  his  note-book  out  of  his  pocket 
and  write  quickly,  quickly.  And  again  he 
would  fall  to  thinking.  .  .  ." 

But  during  the  last  years  Chekhov  began 
to  treat  himself  with  ever  increasing  strict- 

[62] 


ness  and  exactitude:  he  kept  his  stories  for 
several  years,  continually  correcting  and 
copying  them,  and  nevertheless  in  spite  of 
such  minute  work,  the  final  proofs,  which 
came  from  him,  were  speckled  throughout 
with  signs,  corrections,  and  insertions.  In 
order  to  finish  a  work  he  had  to  write  with- 
out tearing  himself  away.  "If  I  leave  a 
story  for  a  long  time," — he  once  said — "I 
cannot  make  myself  finish  it  afterwards.  I 
have  to  begin  again." 

Where  did  he  draw  his  images  from? 
Where  did  he  find  his  observations  and  his 
similes?  Where  did  he  forge  his  superb 
language,  unique  in  Russian  literature?  He 
confided  in  nobody,  never  revealed  his  crea- 
tive methods.  Many  note-books  are  said 
to  have  been  left  by  him;  perhaps  in  them 
will  in  time  be  found  the  keys  to  those  mys- 
teries. Or  perhaps  they  will  forever  remain 
unsolved.  Who  knows?  At  any  rate  we 
must  limit  ourselves  to  vague  hints  and 
guesses. 

I  think  that  always,  from  morning  to  night, 
and  perhaps  at  night  even,  in  his  sleep  and 
sleeplessness,  there  was  going  on  in  him  an 
invisible  but  persistent — at  times  even  un- 

[63] 


conscious — activity,  the  activity  of  weighing, 
defining  and  remembering.  He  knew  how 
to  listen  and  ask  questions,  as  no  one  else 
did;  but  often,  in  the  middle  of  a  lively  con- 
versation, it  would  be  noticed,  how  his  at- 
tentive and  kindly  look  became  motionless 
and  deep,  as  if  it  were  withdrawing  some- 
where inside,  contemplating  something  mys- 
terious and  important,  which  was  going 
on  there.  At  those  moments  A.  P.  would 
put  his  strange  questions,  amazing  through 
their  unexpectedness,  completely  out  of 
touch  with  the  conversation,  questions  which 
confused  many  people.  The  conversation 
was  about  neo-marxists,  and  he  would  sud- 
denly ask:  "Have  you  ever  been  to  a  stud- 
farm^  You  ought  to  see  one.  It  is  inter- 
esting." Or  he  would  repeat  a  question  for 
the  second  time,  which  had  already  been 
answered. 

Chekhov  was  not  remarkable  for  a  mem- 
ory of  external  things.  I  speak  of  that 
power  of  minute  memory,  which  women  so 
often  possess  in  a  very  high  degree,  also  peas- 
ants, which  consists  in  remembering,  how 
a  person,  was  dressed,  whether  he  has  a 
beard  and  mustaches,  what  his  watch  chain 

[64] 


was  like  or  his  boots,  what  color  his  hair 
was.  These  details  were  simply  unimpor- 
tant and  uninteresting  to  him.  But,  in- 
stead, he  took  the  whole  person  and  defined 
quickly  and  truly,  exactly  like  an  exper- 
ienced chemist,  his  specific  gravity,  his 
quality  and  order,  and  he  knew  already  how 
to  describe  his  essential  qualities  in  a  couple 
of  strokes. 

Once  Chekhov  spoke  with  slight  displeas- 
ure of  a  good  friend  of  his,  a  famous  scholar, 
who,  in  spite  of  a  long-standing  friendship, 
somewhat  oppressed  Chekhov  with  his 
talkativeness.  No  sooner  would  he  arrive 
in  Yalta,  than  he  at  once  came  to  Chekhov 
and  sat  there  with  him  all  the  morning  till 
lunch.  Then  he  would  go  to  his  hotel  for 
half  an  hour,  and  come  back  and  sit  until 
late  at  night,  all  the  time  talking,  talking, 
talking.  .  .  .  And  so  on  day  after  day. 

Suddenly,  abruptly  breaking  off  his  story, 
as  if  carried  away  by  a  new  interesting 
thought,  Anton  Pavlovitch  added  with  ani- 
mation : 

— "And  nobody  would  guess  what  is  most 
characteristic  in  that  man.  I  know  it. 
That  he  is  a  professor  and  a  savant  with  a 

[65] 


European  reputation,  is  to  him  a  secondary 
matter.  The  chief  thing  is  that  in  his  heart 
he  considers  himself  to  be  a  remarkable  ac- 
tor, and  he  profoundly  believes  that  it  is 
only  by  chance  that  he  has  not  won  universal 
popularity  on  the  stage.  At  home  he  always 
reads  Ostrovsky  aloud." 

Once,  smiling  at  his  recollection,  he  sud- 
denly observed: 

— "D'you  know,  Moscow  is  the  most 
peculiar  city.  In  it  everything  is  unexpec- 
ted. Once  on  a  spring  morning  S.,  the  pub- 
licist, and  myself  came  out  of  the  Great 
Moscow  Hotel.  It  was  after  a  late  and 
merry  supper.  Suddenly  S.  dragged  me  to 
the  Tversky  Church,  just  opposite.  He 
took  a  handful  of  coppers  and  began  to  share 
it  out  to  the  beggars — there  are  dozens  stand- 
ing about  there.  He  would  give  one  a 
penny  and  whisper:  Tray  for  the  health  of 
Michael  the  slave  of  God.'  It  is  his  Chris- 
tian name  Michael.  And  again:  'for  the 
servant  of  God,  Michael;  for  Michael,  the 
servant  of  God.'  And  he  himself  does  not 
believe   in  God.  .  .  .  Queer  fellow!"   .  .  . 

I  now  approach  a  delicate  point  which 
may  not  perhaps  please  every  one.  I  am 
[66] 


I 


convinced  that  Chekhov  talked  to  a  scholar 
and  a  peddler,  a  beggar  and  a  litterateur, 
with  a  prominent  Zemstvo  worker  and  a  sus- 
picious monk  or  shop  assistant  or  a  small 
postman,  with  the  same  attention  and  curios- 
ity. Is  not  that  the  reason  why  in  his 
stories  the  professor  speaks  and  thinks  just 
like  an  old  professor,  and  the  tramp  just  like 
a  veritable  tramp'?  And  is  it  not  because  of 
this,  that  immediately  after  his  death  there 
appeared  so  many  "bosom"  friends,  for 
whom,  in  their  words,  he  would  be  ready  to 
go  through  fire  and  water? 

I  think  that  he  did  not  open  or  give  his 
heart  completely  to  any  one  (there  is  a  leg- 
end, though,  of  an  intimate,  beloved  friend, 
a  Taganrog  official).  But  he  regarded  all 
kindly,  indifferently  so  far  as  friendship  is 
concerned — and  at  the  same  time  with  a 
great,  perhaps  unconscious,  interest. 

His  Chekhovian  mots  and  those  little 
traits  that  astonish  us  by  their  neatness  and 
appositeness,  he  often  took  direct  from  life. 
The  expression  "it  displeasures  me"  which 
quickly  became,  after  the  "Bishop,"  a  bye- 
word  with  a  wide  circulation,  he  got  from  a 
certain  gloomy  tramp,  half-drunkard,  half- 

[67] 


madman,  half-prophet.  I  also  remember  J 
talking  once  with  Chekhov  of  a  long  deadi 
Moscow  poet,  and  Chekhov  glowingly  re- 
membered him,  and  his  mistress,  and  hisi 
empty  rooms,  and  his  St.  Bernard,  ''Ami,", 
who  suffered  from  constant  indigestion.! 
"Certainly,  I  remember," — Chekhov  saidi 
laughing  gayly — "At  five  o'clock  his  mistress, 
would  always  come  in  and  ask:  'Liodor 
Tranitch,  I  say,  Liodor  Tranitch,  is  it  notj 
time  you  drank  your  beer?'"  And  then; 
I  imprudently  said:  "O,  that's  where  it  j 
comes  from  in  your  'Ward  N  6'  ?" — "Yes,  i 
well,  yes" — replied  Chekhov  with  displea- i 
sure. 

He  had  friends  also  among  those  mer-l 
chants'  wives,  who,  in  spite  of  their  millions  | 
and  the  most  fashionable  dresses,  and  an  i 
outward  interest  in  literature,  say  "ideal"  '' 
and  "in  principal."  Some  of  them  would  for  j 
hours  pour  out  their  souls  before  Chekhov,  I 
wishing  to  convey  what  extraordinarily  re- ! 
fined,  neurotic  characters  they  were,  and  i 
what  a  remarkable  novel  could  be  written  by  j 
a  writer  of  genius  about  their  lives,  if  only  [ 
they  could  tell  everything.  And  he  would  \ 
sit  quietly,  in  silence,  and  listen  with  appar-  j 

[68]  I 


ent    pleasure — only    under    his    moustache 
glided  an  almost  imperceptible  smile. 

I  do  not  wish  to  say  that  he  looked  for 
models,  like  many  other  writers.  But  I 
think,  that  everywhere  and  always  he  saw 
material  for  observation,  and  this  happened 
involuntarily,  often  perhaps  against  his  will, 
through  his  long-cultivated  and  ineradicable 
habit  of  diving  into  people,  of  analyzing 
and  generalizing  them.  In  this  hidden  pro- 
cess was  to  him,  probably,  all  the  torment 
and  joy  of  his  creative  activity. 

He  shared  his  impressions  with  no  one, 
just  as  he  never  spoke  of  what  and  how  he 
was  going  to  write.  Also  very  rarely  was  the 
artist  and  novelist  shown  in  his  talk.  He, 
partly  deliberately,  partly  instinctively,  used 
in  his  speech  ordinary,  average,  common  ex- 
pressions, without  having  recourse  either  to 
simile  or  picturesqueness.  He  guarded  his 
treasures  in  his  soul,  not  permitting  them  to 
be  wasted  in  wordy  foam,  and  in  this  there 
was  a  huge  difference  between  him  and  those 
novelists  who  tell  their  stories  much  better 
than  they  write  them. 

This,  I  think,  came  from  a  natural  reserve, 

[69] 


but  also  from  a  peculiar  shyness.  There  are 
people  who  constitutionally  cannot  endure 
and  are  morbidly  shy  of  too  demonstrative 
attitudes,  gestures  and  words,  and  Anton 
Pavlovitch  possessed  this  quality  in  the  high- 
est degree.  Herein,  maybe,  is  hidden  the 
key  to  his  seeming  indifference  towards  ques- 
tion of  struggle  and  protest  and  his  aloofness 
towards  topical  events,  which  did  and  do  ag- 
itate the  Russian  intelligentsia.  He  had  a 
horror  of  pathos,  of  vehement  emotions  and 
the  theatrical  effects  inseparable  from  them. 
I  can  only  compare  him  in  this  with  a  man 
who  loves  a  woman  with  all  the  ardor,  ten- 
derness and  depth,  of  which  a  man  of  refine- 
ment and  great  intelligence  is  capable.  He 
will  never  try  to  speak  of  it  in  pompous, 
high-flown  words,  and  he  cannot  even  imag- 
ine himself  falling  on  his  knees  and  pressing 
his  hand  to  his  heart  and  speaking  in  the 
tremulous  voice  of  a  young  lover  on  the  stage. 
And  therefore  he  loves  and  is  silent,  and 
suffers  in  silence,  and  will  never  attempt  to 
utter  what  the  average  man  will  express 
freely  and  noisily  according  to  all  the  rules 
of  rhetoric. 

[70] 


VII 


To  young  writers,  Chekhov  was  always 
sympathetic  and  kind.  No  one  left  him 
oppressed  by  his  enormous  talent  and  by 
one's  own  insignificance.  He  never  said  to 
any  one:  "Do  as  I  do;  see  how  I  behave." 
If  in  despair  one  complained  to  him:  "Is  it 
worth  going  on,  if  one  will  forever  remain 
*our  young  and  promising  author"?"  he 
answered  quietly  and  seriously: 

— "But,  my  dear  fellow,  not  every  one  can 
write  like  Tolstoy."  His  considerateness 
was  at  times  pathetic.  A  certain  young 
writer  came  to  Yalta  and  took  a  little  room 
in  a  big  and  noisy  Greek  family  somewhere 
beyond  Antka,  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city. 
He  once  complained  to  Chekhov  that  it  was 
difficult  to  work  in  such  surroundings,  and 
Chekhov  insisted  that  the  writer  should  come 
to  him  in  the  mornings  and  work  downstairs 
in  the  room  adjoining  the  dining  room. 
"You  will  write  downstairs,  and  I  upstairs" 
— he  said  with  his  charming  smile — "And 
you  will  have  dinner  with  me.     When  you 


[71] 


finish  something,  do  read  it  to  me,  or,  if  you 
go  away,  send  me  the  proofs." 

He  read  an  amazing  amount  and  always 
remembered  everything,  and  never  confused  i 
one  writer  with  another.  If  writers  asked  { 
his  opinion,  he  always  praised  their  work,  i 
not  so  as  to  get  rid  of  them,  but  because  he  i 
knew  how  cruelly  a  sharp,  even  if  just,  criti-  j 
cism  cuts  the  wings  of  beginners,  and  what  an  i 
encouragement  and  hope  a  little  praise  gives  i 
sometimes.  "I  have  read  your  story.  It  is  I 
marvelously  well  done,"  he  would  say  on  ! 
such  occasions  in  a  hearty  voice.  But  when  j 
a  certain  confidence  was  established  and  they  | 
got  to  know  each  other,  especially  if  an  au-  i 
thor  insisted,  he  gave  his  opinion  more  def-  t 
initely,  directly,  and  at  greater  length.  I  I 
have  two  letters  of  his,  written  to  one  and  j 
the  same  novelist,  concerning  one  and  the  ! 
same  tale.  Here  is  a  quotation  from  the  j 
first :  ! 

"Dear  N.,  I  received  your  tale  and  have  | 
read  it;  many  thanks.  The  tale  is  good,  I  I 
have  read  it  at  one  go,  as  I  did  the  previous  | 
one,  and  with  the  same  pleasure.  ..." 

But  as  the  author  was  not  satisfied  with 

[72] 


praise  alone,  he  soon  received  a  second  letter 
from  Anton  Pavlovitch. 

"You  want  me  to  speak  of  defects  only, 
and  thereby  you  put  me  in  an  embarrassing 
situation.  There  are  no  defects  in  that 
story,  and  if  one  finds  fault,  it  is  only  with  a 
few  of  its  peculiarities.  For  instance,  your 
heroes,  characters,  you  treat  in  the  old  style, 
as  they  have  been  treated  for  a  hundred  years 
by  all  who  have  written  about  them — noth- 
ing new.  Secondly,  in  the  first  chapter 
you  are  busy  describing  people's  faces — 
again  that  is  the  old  way,  it  is  a  description 
which  can  be  dispensed  with.  Five 
minutely  described  faces  tire  the  attention, 
and  in  the  end  lose  their  value.  Clean- 
shaved  characters  are  like  each  other,  like 
Catholic  priests,  and  remain  alike,  however 
studiously  you  describe  them.  Thirdly, 
you  overdo  your  rough  manner  in  the  des- 
cription of  drunken  people.  That  is  all  I 
can  say  in  reply  to  your  question  about  the 
defects;   I   can   find  nothing  more   that   is 


wrong." 


To  those  writers  with  whom  he  had  any 
common  spiritual  bond,  he  always  behaved 

[73] 


with  great  care  and  attention.  He  never 
missed  an  occasion  to  tell  them  any  news 
which  he  knew  would  be  pleasing  or  useful. 

"Dear  N.,"  he  wrote  to  a  certain  friend  of 
mine, — "I  hereby  inform  you  that  your 
story  was  read  by  L.  N.  Tolstoy  and  he  liked 
it  very  much.  Be  so  good  as  to  send  him 
your  book  at  this  address;  Koreiz,  Tauric 
Province,  and  on  the  title  page  underline  the 
stories  which  you  consider  best,  so  that  he 
should  begin  with  them.  Or  send  the  book 
to  me  and  I  will  hand  it  to  him." 

To  the  writer  of  these  lines  he  also  ance 
showed  a  delightful  kindness,  communicating 
by  letter  that,  "in  the  'Dictionary  of  the  Rus- 
sian Language,'  published  by  the  Academy 
of  Sciences,  in  the  sixth  number  of  the  second 
volume,  which  number  I  received  to-day,  you 
too  appeared  at  last." 

All  these  of  course  are  details,  but  in  them 
is  apparent  much  sympathy  and  concern,  so 
that  now,  when  this  great  artist  and  remark- 
able man  is  no  longer  among  us,  his  letters 
acquire  the  significance  of  a  far-away,  irre- 
vocable caress. 

^  "Write,  write  as  much  as  possible" — he 
would  say  to  young  novelists.     "It  does  not 

[74] 


matter  if  it  does  not  come  off.  Later  on  it 
will  come  off.  The  chief  thing  is,  do  not 
waste  your  youth  and  elasticity.  It's  now 
the  time  for  working.  See,  you  write  su- 
perbly, but  your  vocabulary  is  small.  You 
must  acquire  words  and  turns  of  speech,  and 
for  this  you  must  write  every  day."  » 

And  he  himself  worked  untiringly  on  him- 
self, enriching  his  charming,  varied  vocab- 
ulary from  every  source :  from  conversations, 
dictionaries,  catalogues,  from  learned  works, 
from  sacred  writings.  The  store  of  words 
which  that  silent  man  had  was  extraordinary. 

— "Listen,  travel  third  class  as  often  as 
possible" — he  advised — "I  am  sorry  that  ill- 
ness prevents  me  from  traveling  third. 
There  you  will  sometimes  hear  remarkably 
interesting  things." 

He  also  wondered  at  those  authors  who 
for  years  on  end  see  nothing  but  the  next 
door  house  from  the  windows  of  their  Peters- 
burg flats.  And  often  he  said  with  a  shade 
of  impatience : 

— "I  cannot  understand  why  you — young, 
healthy,  and  free — don't  go,  for  instance,  to 
Australia  (Australia  for  some  reason  was  his 
favorite  part  of  the  world),  or  to  Siberia. 

[75] 


As  soon  as  I  am  better,  I  shall  certainly  go  to 
Siberia.  I  was  there  when  I  went  to  Sa|^ 
halien.  You  cannot  imagine,  my  dear  fel- 
low, what  a  wonderful  country  it  is.  It  is 
quite  different.  You  know,  I  am  convinced 
Siberia  will  some  day  sever  herself  com- 
pletely from  Russia,  just  as  America  severed 
herself  from  her  motherland.  You  must, 
must  go  there  without  fail.  .  .   ." 

''Why  don't  you  write  a  play?" — he 
would  sometimes  ask.  "Do  write  one, 
really.  Every  writer  must  write  at  least 
four  plays." 

But  he  would  confess  now  and  then,  that 
the  dramatic  form  is  losing  its  interest  now. 
''The  drama  must  either  degenerate  com- 
pletely, or  take  a  completely  ne,w  form" — he 
said.  "We  cannot  even  im.agine  what  the 
theatre  will  be  like  in  a  hundred  years." 

There  were  some  little  inconsistencies  in 
Anton  Pavlovitch  which  were  particularly 
attractive  in  him  and  had  at  the  same  time  a 
deep  inner  significance.  This  was  once  the 
case  with  regard  to  note-books.  Chekhov 
had  just  strongly  advised  us  not  to  have  re- 
course to  them  for  help  but  to  rely  wholly  on 
our   memory   and    imagination.     "The   big 

[76] 


things  will  remain" — he  argued — "and  the 
details  you  can  always  invent  or  find." 
But  then,  an  hour  later,  one  of  the  company, 
who  had  been  for  a  year  on  the  stage,  began 
to  talk  of  his  theatrical  impressions  and 
incidentally  mentioned  this  case.  A  rehearsal 
was  taking  place  in  the  theatre  of  a  tiny  pro- 
vincial town.  The  "young  lover"  paced  the 
stage  in  a  hat  and  check  trousers,  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  showing  off  before  a 
casual  public  which  had  straggled  into  the 
theatre.  The  "ingenue,"  his  mistress,  who 
was  also  on  the  stage,  said  to  him: 
"Sasha,  what  was  it  you  whistled  yesterday 
from  Pagliacci^  Do  please  whistle  it 
again."  The  "young  lover"  turned  to  her, 
and  looking  her  up  and  down  with  a  devas- 
tating expression  said  in  a  fat,  actor's  voice : 
"Wha-at!  Whistle  on  the  staged  Would 
you  whistle  in  church?  Then  know  that 
the  stage  is  the  same  as  a  church !" 

At  the  end  of  that  story  Anton  Pavlo- 
vitch  threw  off  his  pince-nez,  flung  himself 
back  in  his  chair,  and  began  to  laugh  with 
his  clear,  ringing  laughter.  He  immediately 
opened  the  drawer  of  his  table  to  get  his 
note-book.     "Wait,  wait,  how  did  you  say 

[77] 


it^     The  stage  is  a  temple?'.  .  .     And  he 
put  down  the  whole  anecdote. 

There  was  no  essential  contradiction  in 
this,  and  Anton  Pavlovitch  explained  it  him- 
self. ''One  should  not  put  down  similes, 
characteristic  traits^  details,  scenes  from 
nature — this  must  come  of  itself  when  it 
is  needed.  But  a  bare  fact,  a  rare  name,  a 
technical  term,  should  be  put  down  in  the 
note-book — otherwise  it  may  be  forgotten 
and  lost." 

Chekhov  frequently  recalled  the  difficulties 
put  in  his  way  by  the  editors  of  serious 
magazines,  until  with  the  helping  hand  of 
"Sieverny  Viestnik"  he  finally  overcame 
them. 

"For  one  thing  you  all  ought  to  be  grate- 
ful to  me," — he  would  say  to  young  writers. 
— "It  was  I  who  opened  the  way  for  writers 
of  short  stories.  Formerly,  when  one  took  a 
manuscript  to  an  editor,  he  did  not  even 
read  it.  He  just  looked  scornfully  at  one. 
'What?  You  call  this  a  work?  But  this 
is  shorter  than  a  sparrow's  nose.  No,  we 
do  not  want  such  trifles.'  But,  see,  I  got 
round  them  and  paved  the  way  for  others. 
But  that  is  nothing;  they  treated  me  much 

[78] 


worse  than  that!  They  used  my  name  as 
a  synonym  for  a  writer  of  short  stories. 
They  would  make  merry:  'O,  you  Chek- 
hovsl'     It  seemed  to  them  amusing." 

Anton  Pavlovitch  had  a  high  opinion  of 
modern  writing,  i.  e.,  properly  speaking,  of 
the  technique  of  modern  writing.  "All 
write  superbly  now;  there  are  no  bad 
writers" — he  said  in  a  resoluce  tone.  "And 
hence  it  is  becoming  more  and  more  dif- 
ficult to  win  fame.  Do  you  know  whom 
that  is  due  to'? — Maupassant.  He,  as  an 
artist  in  language,  put  the  standard  before  an 
author  so  high  that  it  is  no  longer  possible 
to  write  as  of  old.  You  try  to  re-read  some 
of  our  classics,  say,  PisseSSky,  Grigorovitch, 
or  Ostrovsky ;  try,  and  you  will  see  what  ob- 
solete, commonplace  stuff  it  is.  Take  on 
the  other  hand  our  decadents.  They  are 
only  pretending  to  be  sick  and  crazy, — they 
all  are  burly  peasants.  But  so  far  as  writ- 
ing goes, — they  are  masters."  -^ 

At  the  same  time  he  asked  that  writers 
should  choose  ordinary,  everyday  themes, 
simplicity  of  treatment,  and  absence  of 
showy  tricks.  "Why  write," — he  wondered 
— "about  a  man  getting  into  a  submarine 

[79] 


and  going  to'  the  North  Pole  to  reconcile 
himself  with  the  world,  while  his  beloved 
at  that  moment  throws  herself  with  a  hyster- 
ical shriek  from   the  belfry?     All   this  is 

i  untrue  and  does  not  happen  in  reality.  One 
must  write  about  simple  things:  how  Peter 

I    Semionovitch     married     Marie     Ivanovna. 

I    That  is   all.     And  again,   why  those  sub- 

^  titles:  a  psychological  study,  genre,  nou- 
velle'?  All  these  are  mere  pretense.  Put 
as  plain  a  title  as  possible — any  that  occurs 
to  your  mind — and  nothing  else.  Also  use 
as  few  brackets,  italics  and  hyphens  as  pos- 
sible.    They  are  mannerisms." 

He  also  taught  that  an  author  should  be 

/  indifferent  to  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  his 
characters.  "In  a  good  story" — he  said — 
"I  have  read  a  description  of  a  restaurant  by 
the  sea  in  a  large  city.  You  saw  at  once 
that  the  author  was  all  admiration  for  the 
music,  the  electric  light,  the  flowers  in  the 
buttonholes;  that  he  himself  delighted  in 
contemplating  them.  One  has  to  stand  out- 
side these  things,  and,  although  knowing 
them  in  minute  detail,  one  must  look  at  them 
from  top  to  bottom  with  contempt.  And 
then  it  will  be  true." 

[80] 


VIII 

The  son  of  Alphonse  Daudet  in  his  memoirs 
of  his  father  relates  that  the  gifted  French 
writer  half  jokingly  called  himself  a  "seller 
of  happiness."  People  of  all  sorts  would 
constantly  apply  to  him  for  advice  and  as- 
sistance. They  came  with  their  sorrows  and 
worries,  and  he,  already  bedridden  with  a 
painful  and  incurable  disease,  found  suf- 
ficient courage,  patience,  and  love  of  man- 
kind in  himself  to  penetrate  into  other 
people's  grief,  to  console  and  encourage  them. 
Chekhov,  certainly,  with  his  extraordinary 
modesty  and  his  dislike  of  phrase-making, 
would  never  have  said  anything  like  that. 
But  how  often  he  had  to  listen  to  people's 
confessions,  to  help  by  word  and  deed,  to 
hold  out  a  tender  and  strong  hand  to  the 
falling.  ...  In  his  wonderful  objectivity, 
standing  above  personal  sorrows  and  joys,  he 
knew  and  saw  everything.  But  personal 
feeling  stood  in  the  way  of  his  understand- 
ing. He  could  be  kind  and  generous  with- 
out loving;  tender  and  sympathetic  without 
attachment;  a  benefactor,  without  counting 

[81] 


on  gratitude.  And  these  traits  which  were 
never  understood  by  those  round  him,  con- 
tained the  chief  key  to  his  personality. 

Availing  myself  of  the  permission  of  a 
friend  of  mine,  I  will  quote  a  short  extract 
from  a  Chekhov  letter.  The  man  was 
greatly  alarmed  and  troubled  during  the  first 
pregnancy  of  a  much  beloved  wife,  and,  to 
tell  the  truth,  he  distressed  Anton  Pavlovitch 
greatly  with  his  own  trouble.  Chekhov  once 
wrote  to  him: 

"Tell  your  wife  she  should  not  be  anxious, 
everything  will  be  all  right.  The  travail 
will  last  twenty  hours,  and  then  will  ensue 
a  most  blissful  state,  when  she  will  smile, 
and  you  will  long  to  cry  from  love  and  grati- 
tude. Twenty  hours  is  the  usual  maximum 
for  the  first  childbirth." 

What  a  subtle  cure  for  another's  anxiety 
is  heard  in  these  few  simple  lines!  But 
it  is  still  more  characteristic  that  later,  when 
my  friend  had  become  a  happy  father,  and, 
recollecting  that  letter,  asked  Chekhov  how 
he  understood  these  feelings  so  well,  Anton 
Pavlovitch  answered  quietly,  even  indif- 
ferently : 

"When  I  lived  in  the  country,  I  always 

[82] 


had  to  attend  peasant  women.  It  was  just 
the  s-^me — there  too  is  the  same  joy." 

If  Chekhov  had  not  been  such  a  remark- 
able writer,  he  would  have  been  a  great 
doctor.  Physicians  who  sometimes  invited 
him  to  a  consultation  spoke  of  him  as  an 
unusually  thoughtful  observer  and  penetrat- 
ing in  diagnosis.  It  would  not  be  surprising 
if  his  diagnosis  were  more  perfect  and  pro- 
found than  a  diagnosis  given  by  a  fashion- 
able celebrity.  He  saw  and  heard  in  man 
— in  his  face,  voice,  and  bearing — what  was 
hidden  and  would  escape  the  notice  of  an 
average  observer. 

He  himself  preferred  to  recommend,  in 
the  rare  cases  when  his  advice  was  sought, 
medicines  that  were  tried,  simple,  and  mostly 
domestic.  By  the  way  he  treated  children 
with  great  success. 

He  believed  in  medicine  firmly  and 
soundly,  and  nothing  could  shake  that  be- 
lief. I  remember  how  cross  he  was  once 
when  some  one  began  to  talk  slightingly  of 
medicine,  basing  his  remarks  on  Zola's  novel 
"Doctor  Pascal." 

— "Zola  understands  nothing  and  invents 
it  all  in  his  study," — he  said  in  agitation, 

[83] 


coughing.  ''Let  him  come  and  see  how  our 
Zemstvo  doctors  work  and  what  they  do 
for  the  people." 

Every  one  knows  how  often — with  what 
sympathy  and  love  beneath  an  external  hard- 
ness, he  describes  those  superb  workers,  those 
obscure  and  inconspicuous  heroes  who  de- 
liberately doomed  their  names  to  oblivion. 
He  described  them,  even  without  sparing 
them. 


IX 


There  is  a^ayjng;j^the  death  of  each  man  is 
like  him.  One  recalls  it  Tnvoluntarily  when 
one  thinks  of  the  last  years  of  Chekhov's 
life,  of  the  last  days,  even  of  the  last 
minutes.  Even  into  his  funeral  fate 
brought,  by  some  fatal  consistency,  man-" 
purely  Chekhovian  traits. 

He  struggled  long,  terribly  long,  with  an 
implacable  disease,  but  bore  it  with  manly 
simplicity  and  patience,  without  irritation, 
without  complaints,  almost  in  silence.  Only 
just  before  his  death,  he  mentions  his  dis- 
ease, just  by  the  way,  in  his  letters.  ''My 
health  is   recovered,   although  I  still   walk 

[84] 


with  a  compress  on."  ...  "I  have  just  got 
through  a  pleurisy,  but  am  better  now." 
.  .  .  "My  health  is  not  grand.  ...  I 
write  on." 

He  did  not  like  to  talk  of  his  disease  and 
was  annoyed  when  questioned  about  it. 
Only  from  Arseniy  (the  servant)  one  would 
learn.  *'This  morning  he  was  very  bad — 
there  was  blood,"  he  would  say  in  a  whisper, 
shaking  his  head.  Or  Yevguenia  Yakov- 
levna,  Chekhov's  mother,  would  say  secretly 
with  anguish  in  her  voice: 

"Antosha  again  coughed  all  night.  I  hear 
through  the  wall." 

Did  he  know  the  extent  and  meaning  of 
his  disease?  I  think  he  did,  but  intrepidly, 
like  a  doctor  and  a  philosopher,  he  looked 
into  the  eyes  of  imminent  death.  There 
were  various,  trifling  circumstances  pointing 
to  the  fact  that  he  knew.  Thus,  for  in- 
stance, to  a  lady,  who  complained  to  him  of 
insomnia  and  nervous  breakdown,  he  said 
quietly,  with  an  indefinable  sadness: 

"You  see;  whilst  a  man's  lungs  are  right, 
everything  is  right." 

He  died  simply,  pathetically,  r.nd  fully 
conscious.     They  say  his  last  words  were: 

[85] 


J       ^€ix^sterbe,l'^    And    his    last    days    were 

darkened  by  a  deep  sorrow  for  Russia,  and 
by  the  anxiety  of  the  monstrous  Japanese 
war. 

His  funeral  comes  back  to  mind  like  a 
dream.  The  cold,  grayish  Petersburg,  a 
mistake  about  a  telegram,  a  small  gathering 
of  people  at  the  railway  station,  "Wagon 
for  oysters,"  in  which  his  remains  were 
brought  from  Germany,  the  station  author- 
ities who  had  never  heard  of  Chekhov  and 
saw  in  his  body  only  a  railway  cargo.  .  .  . 
Then,  as  a  contrast,  Moscow,  profound  sor- 
row, thousands  of  bereaved  people,  tear- 
stained  faces.  And  at  last  his  grave  in  the 
Novodevitchy  cemetery,  filled  with  flowers, 
side  by  side  with  the  humble  grave  of  the 
"Cossack's  wide    .,  Olga  Coocaretnikov." 

I  remember  the  service  in  the  cemetery  the 
day  after  his  funeral.  It  was  a  still  July 
evening,  and  the  old  lime  trees  over  the 
graves  stood  motionless  and  golden  in  the 
sun.  With  a  quiet,  tender  sadness  and 
sighing  sounded  the  women's  voices.  And 
in  the  souls  of  many,  then,  was  a  deep  per- 
plexity. 

Slowly  and  in  silence  the  people  left  the 
[86] 


cemetery.  I  went  up  to  Chekhov's  mother 
and  silently  kissed  her  hand.  And  she  said 
in  a  low,  tired  voice : 

*'Our  trial  is  bitter.  .  .  .  Antosha  is 
dead." 

O,  the  overwhelming  depth  of  these 
simple,  ordinary,  very  Chekhovian  words! 
The  enormous  abyss  of  the  loss,  the  irrevoc- 
able nature  of  the  great  event,  opened  be- 
hind. No!  Consolations  would  be  useless. 
Can  the  sorrow  of  those,  whose  souls  have 
been  so  close  to  the  great  soul  of  the  dead, 
ever  be  assuaged*? 

But  let  their  unquenchable  anguish  be 
stayed  by  the  consciousness  that  their  dis- 
tress is  our  common  distress.  Let  it  be 
softened  by  the  thought  of  the  immortality 
of  his  great  and  pure  name.  Indeed:  there 
will  pass  years  and  centuries,  and  time  will 
efface  the  very  memory  of  thousands  and 
thousands  of  those  living  now.  But  the 
posterity,  of  whose  happiness  Chekhov 
dreamt  with  such  fascinating  sadness,  will 
speak  his  name  with  gratitude  and  silent  / 
sorrow  for  his  fate.  / 

[87] 


A.  P.  CHEKHOV 

BY 

I.  A.  BUNIN 


I  MADE  Chekhov's  acquaintance  in  Moscow, 
towards  the  end  of  '95.  We  met  then  at 
intervals  and  I  should  not  think  it  worth 
mentioning,  if  I  did  not  remember  some  very 
characteristic  phrases. 

"Do  you  write  much^"  he  asked  me  once. 

I  answered  that  I  wrote  little. 

"Bad,"  he  said,  almost  sternly,  in  his  low, 
deep  voice.  "One  must  work  .  .  .  without 
sparing  oneself  ...  all  one's  life." 

And,  after  a  pause,  without  any  visible 
connection,  he  added: 

"When  one  has  written  a  story  I  believe 
that  one  ought  to  strike  out  both  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end.  That  is  where  we  novel- 
ists are  most  inclined  to  lie.  And  one  must 
write  shortly — as  shortly  as  possible." 

Then  we  spoke  of  poetry,  and  he  suddenly 
became  excited.  "Tell  me,  do  you  care  for 
Alexey  Tolstoy's  poems?  To  me  he  is  an 
actor.  When  he  was  a  boy  he  put  on 
evening  dress  and  he  has  never  taken  it  off." 

[91] 


After  these  stray  meetings  in  which  we 
touched  upon  some  of  Chekhov's  favorite 
topics — as  that  one  must  work  "without 
sparing  oneself"  and  must  write  simply  and 
without  the  shadow  of  falsehood — we  did 
not  meet  till  the  spring  of  '99.  I  came  to 
Yalta  for  a  few  days,  and  one  evening  I 
met  Chekhov  on  the  quay. 

*'Why  don't  you  come  to  see  me?"  were 
his    first    words.     "Be    sure    to    come    to- 


morrow." 


"At  what  time?"  I  asked. 

"In  the  morning  about  eight." 

And  seeing  perhaps  that  I  looked  surprised 
he  added: 

"We  get  up  early.     Don't  you?" 

"Yes  I  do  too,"  I  said. 

"Well  then,  come  when  you  get  up.  We 
will  give  you  coffee.     You  take  coffee?" 

"Sometimes." 

"You  ought  to  always.  It's  a  wonderful 
drink.  When  I  am  working,  I  drink  nothing 
but  coffee  and  chicken  broth  until  the 
evening.  Coffee  in  the  morning  and  chicken 
broth  at  midday.  If  I  don't,  my  work 
suffers." 

I   thanked  him   for  asking  me,  and  we 

[92] 


crossed  the  quay  in  silence  and  sat  down  on 
a  bench. 

"Do  you  love  the  sea*?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,"  he  replied.     "But  it  is  too  lonely." 

"That's  what  I  like  about  it,"  I  replied. 

"I  wonder,"  he  mused,  looking  through 
his  spectacles  away  into  the  distance  and 
thinking  his  own  thoughts.  "It  must  be 
nice  to  be  a  soldier,  or  a  young  undergradu- 
ate ...  to  sit  in  a  crowd  and  listen  to  the 
band.  .  .  ." 

And  then,  as  was  usual  with  him,  after 
a  pause  and  without  apparent  connection,  he 
added : 

"It  is  very  difficult  to  describe  the  sea. 
Do  you  know  the  description  that  a  school- 
boy gave  in  an  exercise?  'The  sea  is  vast.' 
Only  that.     Wonderful,  I  think." 

Some  people  might  think  him  affected  in 
saying  this.     But  Chekhov — affected! 

"I  grant,"  said  one  who  knew  Chekhov 
well,  "that  I  have  met  men  as  sincere  as 
Chekhov.  But  any  one  so  simple,  and  so 
free  from  pose  and  affectation  I  have  never 
known!" 

And  that  is  true.  He  loved  all  that  was. 
sincere,  vital,  and  gay,  so  long  as  it  was| 

[93] 


neither  coarse  nor  dull,  and  could  not  en- 
dure pedants,  or  book-worms  who  have  got 
so  much  into  the  habit  of  making  phrases 
that  they  can  talk  in  no  other  way.  In  his 
writings  he  scarcely  ever  spoke  of  himself 
or  of  his  views,  and  this  led  people  to  think 
him  a  man  without  principles  or  sense  of 
duty  to  his  kind.  In  life,  too,  he  was  no 
egotist,  and  seldom  spoke  of  his  likings  and 
dislikings.  But  both  were  very  strong  and 
lasting,  and  simplicity  was  one  of  the  things 
he  liked  best.  "The  sea  is  vast."  ...  To 
him,  with  his  passion  for  simplicity  and  his 
loathing  of  the  strained  and  affected,  that 
was  "wonderful."  His  words  about  the 
officer  and  the  music  showed  another  char- 
acteristic of  his:  his  reserve.  The  transi- 
tion from  the  sea  to  the  officer  was  no 
doubt  inspired  by  his  secret  craving  for  youth 
and  health.  The  sea  is  lonely.  .  .  .  And 
Chekhov  loved  life  and  joy.  During  his 
last  years  his  desire  for  happiness,  even  of 
the  simplest  kind,  would  constantly  show 
itself  in  his  conversation.  It  would  be 
hinted  at,  not  expressed. 

In  Moscow,  in  the  year  1895,  I  saw  a 

[94] 


middle-aged  man  (Chekhov  was  then  35) 
wearing  pince-nez,  quietly  dressed,  rather 
tall,  and  light  and  graceful  in  his  move- 
ments. He  welcomed  me,  but  so  quietly 
that  I,  then  a  boy,  took  his  quietness  for 
coldness.  ...  In  Yalta,  in  the  year  1899, 
I  found  him  already  much  changed;  he  had 
grown  thin;  his  face  was  sadder;  his  dis- 
tinction was  as  great  as  ever  but  it  was  the 
distinction  of  an  elderly  man,  who  has  gone 
through  much,  and  been  ennobled  by  his  suf- 
fering. His  voice  was  gentler.  ...  In 
other  respects  he  was  much  as  he  had  been 
in  Moscow;  cordial,  speaking  with  anima- 
tion, but  even  more  simply  and  shortly, 
and,  while  he  talked,  he  went  on  with  his 
own  thoughts.  He  let  me  grasp  the  con- 
nections between  his  thoughts  as  well  as  I 
could,  while  he  looked  through  his  glasses 
at  the  sea,  his  face  slightly  raised.  Next 
morning  after  meeting  him  on  the  quay  I 
went  to  his  house.  I  well  remember  the 
bright  sunny  morning  that  I  spent  with 
Chekhov  in  his  garden.  He  was  very  lively, 
and  laughed  and  read  me  the  only  poem,  so 
he  said,  that  he  had  ever  written,  "Horses, 

[95] 


Hares  and  Chinamen,  a  fable  for  children."     | 
(Chekhov  wrote  it  for  the  children  of  a 
friend.     See  Letters.) 

Once  walked  over  a  bridge 

Fat  Chinamen, 
In  front  of  them,  with  their  tails  up, 

Hares  ran  quickly. 
Suddenly  the  Chinamen  shouted: 

"Stop'i     Whoa  I     Ho!     Ho!" 
The  hares  raised  their  tails  still  higher 

And  hid  in  the  bushes. 
The  moral  of  this  fable  is  clear : 

He  who  wants  to  eat  hares 
Every  day  getting  out  of  bed 

Must  obey  his  father. 

After  that  visit  I  went  to  him  more  and 
more  frequently.  Chekhov's  attitude  to- 
wards me  therefore  changed.  He  became 
more  friendly  and  cordial.  .  .  .  But  he  was 
still  reserved,  yet,  as  he  was  reserved  not 
only  with  me  but  with  those  who  were  most 
intimate  with  him,  it  rose,  I  believed,  not 
from  coldness,  but  from  something  much 
more  important. 

The  charming  white  stone  house,  bright 
in  the  sun;  the  little  orchard,  planted  and 
tended  by  Chekhov  himself  who  loved  all 

[96] 


flowers,  trees,  and  animals;  his  study,  with 
its  few  pictures,  and  the  large  window  which 
looked  out  onto  the  valley  of  the  river  Ut- 
chan-Spo,  and  the  blue  triangle  of  the  sea; 
the  hours,  days,  and  even  months  which  I 
spent  there,  and  my  friendship  with  the  man 
who  fascinated  me  not  only  by  his  genius 
but  also  by  his  stern  voice  and  his  child- 
like smile — all  this  will  always  remain  one 
of  the  happiest  memories  of  my  life.  He 
was  friendly  to  me  and  at  times  almost  ten- 
der. But  the  reserve  which  I  have  spoken 
of  never  disappeared  even  when  we  were 
most  intimate.  He  was  reserved  about 
everything. 

He  was  very  humorous  and  loved  laugh- 
ter, but  he  only  laughed  his  charming  in- 
fectious laugh  when  somebody  else  had  made 
a  joke:  he  himself  would  say  the  most  amus- 
ing things  without  the  slightest  smile.  He 
delighted  in  jokes,  in  absurd  nicknames,  and 
in  mystifying  people.  .  .  .  Even  towards 
the  end  when  he  felt  a  little  better 
his  humor  was  irrepressible.  And  with 
what  subtle  humor  he  would  make  one 
laugh!  He  would  drop  a  couple  of  words 
and  wink  his  eye  above  his  glasses.  .  .  . 

[97] 


His  letters  too,  though  their  form  is  perfect, 
are  full  of  delightful  humor. 

But  Chekhov's  reserve  was  shown  in  a 
great  many  other  ways  which  proved  the 
strength  of  his  character.  No  one  ever 
heard  him  complain,  though  no  one  had 
more  reason  to  complain.  He  was  one  of 
a  large  family,  which  lived  in  a  state  of 
actual  want.  He  had  to  work  for  money 
under  conditions  which  would  have  ex- 
tinguished the  most  fiery  inspiration.  He 
lived  in  a  tiny  flat,  writing  at  the  edge  of  a 
table,  in  the  midst  of  talk  and  noise  with 
the  whole  family  and  often  several  visitors 
sitting  round  him.  For  many  years  he  was 
very  poor.  .  .  .  Yet  he  scarcely  ever  grum- 
bled at  his  lot.  It  was  not  that  he  asked 
little  of  life :  on  the  contrary,  he  hated  what 
was  mean  and  meager  though  he  was  nobly 
Spartan  in  the  way  he  lived.  For  fifteen 
years  he  suffered  from  an  exhausting  illness 
which  finally  killed  him,  but  his  readers 
never  knew  it.  The  same  could  not  be  said 
of  most  writers.  Indeed,  the  manliness  with 
which  he  bore  his  sufferings  and  met  his 
death  was  admirable.  Even  at  his  worst  he 
almost  succeeded  in  hiding  his  pain. 

[98] 


"You  are  not  feeling  well,  Antosha^" 
his  mother  or  sister  would  say,  seeing  him 
sitting  all  day  with  his  eyes  shut. 

"I*?"  he  would  answer,  quietly,  opening 
the  eyes  which  looked  so  clear  and  mild 
without  his  glasses.  "Oh,  it's  nothing.  I 
have  a  little  headache." 

He  loved  literature  passionately,  and  to 
talk  of  writers  and  to  praise  Maupassant, 
Flaubert,  or  Tolstoy  was  a  great  joy  to  him. 
He  spoke  with  particular  enthusiasm  of  those 
just  mentioned  and  also  of  Lermontov's 
"Taman." 

"I  cannot  understand,"  he  would  say, 
"how  a  mere  boy  could  have  written 
TamanI  Ah,  if  one  had  written  that  and 
a  good  comedy — then  one  would  be  content 
to  die!" 

But  his  talk  about  literature  was  very 
different  from  the  usual  shop  talked  by 
writers,  with  its  narrowness,  and  smallness, 
and  petty  personal  spite.  He  would  only 
discuss  books  with  people  who  loved  litera- 
ture above  all  other  arts  and  were  disin- 
terested and  pure  in  their  love  of  it. 

"You  should  not  read  your  writing  to 
other  people  before  it  is  published,"  he  often 

[99] 


said.  "And  it  is  most  important  never  to 
take  any  one's  advice.  If  you  have  made  a 
mess  of  it,  let  the  blood  be  on  your  own 
head.  Maupassant  by  his  greatness  has  so 
raised  the  standard  of  writing  that  it  is  very 
hard  to  write;  but  we  have  to  write,  espe- 
cially we  Russians,  and  in  writing  one  must 
be  courageous.  There  are  big  dogs  and  little 
dogs,  but  the  little  dogs  should  not  be  dis- 
heartened by  the  existence  of  the  big  dogs. 
All  must  bark — and  bark  with  the  voice 
God  gave  them." 

All  that  went  on  in  the  world  of  letters 
interested  him  keenly,   and  he  was  indig- 
nant with  the  stupidity,  falsehood,  affecta- 
tion   and    charlatanry   which   batten    upon 
literature.     But  though  he  was  angry  he 
was  never  irritable  and  there  was  nothing 
personal  in  his  anger.     It  is  usual  to  say 
of  dead  writers  that  they  rejoiced  in  the  suc- 
cess of  others,  and  were  not  jealous  of  them,  j 
If,   therefore,   I  suspected  Chekhov  of  the  i 
least  jealousy  I  should  be  content  to  say  \ 
nothing  about  it.     But  the  fact  is  that  he  | 
rejoiced  in  the  existence  of  talent,  spontane-  J 
ously.     The  word  "talentless"  was,  I  think, 
the  most  damaging  expression  he  could  use,  ,| 
[loo] 


His  own  failures  and  successes  he  took  as  he 
alone  knew  how  to  take  them. 

He  was  writing  for  twenty-five  years  and 
during  that  time  his  writing  was  constantly 
attacked.     Being  one  of  the  greatest  and 
most  subtle  of  Russian  writers,  he  never 
used  his  art  to  preach.     That  b^ing  so,  Rus- 
sian  critics  could  neither  understand  him 
nor  approve  of  him.     Did  they  not  insist 
diat  Levitan  should  "light  up"  his  land- 
scapes— that  is  paint  in  a  cow,  a  goose,  or 
the  figure  of  a  woman?     Such  criticism  hurt 
Chekhov  a  good  deal,  and  embittered  him 
even    more    than    he    was    already    embit- 
tered by  Russian  life  itself.     His  bitterness 
would  show  itself  momentarily — only  mo- 
mentarily. 

"We  shall  soon  be  celebrating  your  jubi- 
lee, Anton  PavlovitchI" 

"I  know  your  jubilees.  For  twenty-five 
years  they  do  nothing  but  abuse  and  ridicule 
a  man,  and  then  you  give  him  a  pen  made  of 
aluminum  and  slobber  over  him  for  a  whole 
day,  and  cry,  and  kiss  him,  and  gush!" 

To  talk  of  his  fame  and  his  popularity  he 
would  answer  in  the  same  way — with  two 
or  three  words  or  a  jest. 

[101] 


"Have  you  read  it,  Anton  Pavlovitch?" 
one  would  ask,  having  read  an  article  about 
him. 

He  would  look  slyly  over  his  spectacles, 
ludicrously   lengthen   his   face,   and  sav   in 
his  deep  voice: 
1       "Oh,    a    thousand    thanks  I     There    is    a 
whole   column,    and   at   the   bottom   of    it, 
j  *There  is  also  a  writer  called  Chekhov :  a 
'discontented  man,  a  grumbler/  " 
Sometimes  he  would  add  seriously : 
"When  you  find  yourself  criticized,  re- 
member us  sinners.     The  critics  boxed  our 
ears  for  trifles  just  as   if  we  were  school- 
boys.    One  of  them  foretold  that  I  should 
die  in  a  ditch.     He  supposed  that  I  had  been 
expelled  from  school  for  drunkenness." 
J         I   never   saw   Chekhov   lose   his   temper. 
Very  seldom  was  he  irritated,  and  if  it  did 
!    happen  he  controlled  himself  astonishingly. 
'    I  remember,  for  instance,  that  he  was  once 
\       annoyed  by  reading  in  a  book  that  he  was 
I       "indifferent"  to  questions  of  morality  and 
:      society,  and  that  he  was  a  pessimist.     Yet  his 
j  ■    annoyance  showed  itself  only  in  two  words: 
"Utter  idiot!" 

Nor  did  I  find  him  cold.     He  said  that  he 
[102] 


was  cold  when  he  wrote,  and  that  he  only 
wrote  when  the  thoughts  and  images  that  he 
was  about  to  express  were  perfectly  clear  to 
him,  and  then  he  wrote  on,  steadily,  without 
interruptions,  until  he  had  brought  it  to  an 
end. 

"One  ought  only  to  write  when  one  feels       ^ 
completely  calm,"  he  said  once. 

But  this  calm  was  of  a  very  peculiar  na-  y/ 
ture.     No  other  Russian  writer  had  his  sen- 
sibility and  his  complexity. 

Indeed,  it  would  take  a  very  versatile 
mind  to  throw  any  light  upon  this  profound 
and  complex  spirit — this  "incomparable  ar- 
tist" as  Tolstoy  called  him.  I  can  only  bear 
witness  that  he  was  a  man  of  rare  spiritual 
nobleness,  distinguished  and  cultivated  in 
the  best  sense,  who  combined  tenderness  and 
delicacy  with  complete  sincerity,  kindness 
and  sensitiveness  with  complete  candour. 

Tojbe  truthful  and  natural  and  yet  retairi^./ 
great  charm  implies  a  nature  of  rare  beauty/  \ 


integrity,  and  power,  I  speak  so  frequently 
of  Chekhov's  composure  because  his  compo- 
sure seems  to  me  a  proof  of  the  strength  of 
his  character.  It  was  always  his,  I  think, 
even  when  he  was  young  and  in  the  highest 

[J03] 


spirits,  and  it  was  that,  perhaps,  that  made 
him  so  independent,  and  able  to  begin  his 
work  unpretentiously  and  courageously, 
without  paltering  with  his  conscience. 

Do  you  remember  the  words  of  the  old 
professor  in  "The  Tedious  Story  ^" 
.?  "I  won't  say  that  French  books  are  good 
and  gifted  and  noble;  but  they  are  not  so 
dull  as  Russian  books,  and  the  chief  element 
of  creative  power  is  often  to  be  found  in 
them — the  sense  of  personal  freedom." 

Chekhov  had  in  the  highest  degree  that 
''sense  of  personal  freedom"  and  he  could  not 
bear  that  others  should  be  without  it.  He 
would  become  bitter  and  uncompromising  if 
he  thought  that  others  were  taking  liberties 
with  it. 

That  "freedom,"  it  is  well  known,  cost 
him  a  great  deal ;  but  he  was  not  one  of  those 
people  who  have  two  different  ideals — one 
for  themselves,  the  other  for  the  public. 
His  success  was  for  a  very  long  time  much 
less  than  he  deserved-  But  he  never  during 
the  whole  of  his  life  made  the  least  effort  to 
increase  his  popularity.  He  was  extremely 
severe  upon  all  the  wire-pulling  which  is  now 
resorted  to  in  order  to  achieve  success. 
[104] 


*'Do  you  still  call  them  writers'?     They 
are  cab-men!"  he  said  bitterly. 

His  dislike  to  being  made  a  show  of  at 
times  seemed  excessive. 

"The  Scorpion  (a  publishing  firm)  adver- 
tise their  books  badly,"  he  wrote  to  me  after 
the  publication  of  ''Northern  Flowers." 
"They  put  my  name  first,  and  when  I  read 
the  advertisement  in  the  daily  Russkya  Ve- 
donosti  I  swore  I  would  never  again  have 
any  truck  with  scorpions,  crocodiles,  or 
snakes." 

This  was  the  winter  of  1900  when  Chek- 
hov who  had  become  interested  in  certain 
features  of  the  new  publishing  firm  "Scor- 
pion" gave  them  at  my  request  one  of  his 
youthful  stories,  "On  the  Sea."  They 
printed  it  in  a  volume  of  collected  stories 
and  he  many  times  regretted  it. 

"All  this  new  Russian  art  is  nonsense,"  he 
would  say.  "I  remember  that  I  once  saw  a 
sign-board  in  Taganrog:  Arfeticial  (for  'arti- 
ficial') mineral  waters  are  sold  here!  Well, 
this  new  art  is  the  same  as  that." 

His  reserve  came  from  the  loftiness  of  his 
spirit  and  from  his  incessant  endeavor  to  ex- 
press himself  exactly.     It  will  eventually 

[105] 


happen  that  people  will  know  that  he  was 
not  only  an  "incomparable  artist,"  not  only 
an  amazing  master  of  language  but  an  incom- 
parable man  into  the  bargain.  But  it  will 
take  many  years  for  people  to  grasp  in  its 
fullness  his  subtlety,  power,  and  delicacy. 

"How  are  you,  dear  Ivan  Alexeyevitch?" 
he  wrote  to  me  at  Nice.  "I  wish  you  a 
happy  New  Year.  I  received  your  letter, 
thank  you.  In  Moscow  everything  is  safe, 
sound,  and  dull.  There  is  no  news  (except 
the  New  Year)  nor  is  any  news  expected. 
My  play  is  not  yet  produced,  nor  do  I 
know  when  it  will  be.  It  is  possible  that  I 
may  come  to  Nice  in  February.  .  .  .  Greet 
the  lovely  hot  sun  from  me,  and  the  quiet  sea. 
Enjoy  yourself,  be  happy,  don't  think  about 
illness,  and  write  often  to  your  friends.  .  .  . 
Keep  well,  and  cheerful,  and  don't  forget 
your  sallow  northern  countrymen,  who  suffer 
from  indigestion  and  bad  temper."  (8th 
January,  1904). 

"Greet  the  lovely  hot  sun  and  the  quiet 
sea  from  me"  ...  I  seldom  heard  him  say 
that.  But  I  often  felt  that  he  ought  to  say 
it,  and  then  my  heart  ached  sadly. 

I  remember  one  night  in  early  spring.     It 

[106] 


was  late.  Suddenly  the  telephone  rang.  I 
heard  Chekhov's  deep  voice : 

"Sir,  take  a  cab  and  come  here.  Let  us 
go  for  a  drive." 

"A  drive?  At  this  time  of  night?'  I  an- 
swered. "What's  the  matter,  Anton  Pav- 
lovitch?" 

"I  am  in  love." 

"That's  good.  But  it  is  past  nine.  .  .  . 
You  will  catch  cold." 

"Young  man,  don't  quibble!" 

Ten  minutes  later  I  was  at  Afitka.  The 
house,  where  during  the  winter  Chekhov 
lived  alone  with  his  mother,  was  dark  and 
silent,  save  that  a  light  came  through  the 
key-hole  of  his  mother's  room,  and  two  little 
candles  burnt  in  the  semi-darkness  of  his 
study.  My  heart  shrank  as  usual  at  the 
sight  of  that  quiet  study,  where  Chekhov 
passed  so  many  lonely  winter  nights,  think- 
ing bitterly  perhaps  on  the  fate  which  had 
given  him  so  much  and  mocked  him  so 
cruelly. 

"What  a  night!"  he  said  to  me  with  even 

more  than  his  usual  tenderness  and  pensive 

gladness,  meeting  me  in  the  doorway.     "It 

is  so  dull  here!     The   only   excitement   is 

[107] 


when  the  telephone  rings  and  Sophie  Pav- 
lovna  asks  what  I  am  doing,  and  I  answer: 
'I  am  catching  mice.'  Come,  let  us  drive  to 
Orianda.  I  don't  care  a  hang  if  I  do  catch 
cold!" 

The  night  was  warm  and  still,  with  a 
bright  moon,  light  clouds,  and  a  few  stars  in 
the  deep  blue  sky.  The  carriage  rolled  softly 
along  the  white  road,  and,  soothed  by  the 
stillness  of  the  night,  we  sat  silent  looking  at 
the  sea  glowing  a  dim  gold.  .  .  .  Then 
came  the  forest  cob  webbed  over  with  shad- 
ows, but  already  spring-like  and  beautiful. 
.  .  .  Black  troops  of  giant  cypresses  rose 
majestically  into  the  sky.  We  stopped  the 
carriage  and  walked  beneath  them,  past  the 
ruins  of  the  castle,  which  were  pale  blue  in 
the  moonlight.  Chekhov  suddenly  said  to 
me: 

"Do  you  know  for  how  many  years  I  shall 
be  read*?     Seven." 

"Why  seven?"  I  asked. 

"Seven  and  a  half,  then." 

"No,"  I  said.  "Poetry  lives  long,  and  the 
longer  it  lives  the  better  it  becomes — like 
wine." 

He  said  nothing,  but  when  we  had  sat 

[108] 


down  on  a  bench  from  which  we  could  see  the 
sea  shining  in  thie  moonlight,  he  took  off  his 
glasses  and  said,  looking  at  me  with  his  kind, 
tired  eyes : 

"Poets,  sir,  are  those  who  use  such  phrases 
as  'the  silvery  distance,'  'accord,'  or  'onward, 
onward,  to  the  fight  with  the  powers  of 
darkness' !" 

"You  are  sad  to-night,  Anton  Pavlovitch," 
I  said,  looking  at  his  kind  and  beautiful  face, 
pale  in  the  moonlight. 

He  was  thoughtfully  digging  up  little 
pebbles  with  the  end  of  his  stick,  with  his 
eyes  on  the  ground.  But  when  I  said  that 
he  was  sad,  he  looked  across  at  mfe,  humor- 
ously. 

"It  is  you  who  are  sad,"  he  answered. 
"You  are  sad  because  you  have  spent  such  a 
lot  on  the  cab." 

Then  he  added  gravely : 

"Yes,  I  shall  only  be  read  for  another  seven 
years;  and  I  shall  live  for  less — perhaps  for 
six.  But  don't  go  and  tell  that  to  the  news- 
paper reporters." 

He  was  wrong  there:  he  did  not  live  for 
six  years.  .  .  . 

He  died  peacefully  without  suffering  in 

[109] 


the  stillness  and  beauty  of  a  summer's  dawn 

I  which  he  had  always  loved.     When  he  was 

/    dead  a  look  of  happiness  came  upon  his  face, 

/     and  it  looked  like  the  face  of  a  very  young 

man.  There  came  to  my  mind  the  words  of 
,     Leconte  de  Lisle: 

'      Moi,  je  fenvie,  au  fond  du  tombeau  calmf,et  noir 
j      D'etre  affranchi  de  vivre  et  de  ne  plus  savoir 
/       La  honte  de  penser  et  I'horreur  d'etre  un  homme! 


[no] 


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